With special interest in medieval French secular repertory, this paper analyzes a page of manuscript selected from the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, Manuscript 5198, (Trouvère V, or Chansonnier de l'Arsenal). The manuscript was made for the royal family of Navarre around sometime between 1301 and 1325. This manuscript has a physical dimension of 312x220mm, and a total of 420 pages bound in green leather with gold gilded letters . Each parchment has two columns of contents with text and notated music. The page number is not indicated in folio numbers followed by recto or verso, but rather in Arabic numbers. The manuscript overall is preserved in good condition, and contains an extraordinary number of songs classified by authors, whose name is written in the margin in red circles before each song.
Folio 1 of Chansonnier de l'Arsenal is “Amors me fet conmencier,” a trouvère composition by the king of Navarre.
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The chansonnier included over fifty pages of Thibaut’s songs, followed by almost forty of those of Gace, who was a knight. The list descends in social rank, ending with mostly bourgeois trouvères, followed by lesser-known figures with only one or two songs each. According to O'Neill, the order in which trouvères appear and the amount of pages devoted to each in many chansonniers clearly indicates their perceived importance .
It is not a surprise that Thibaut's music captivated people. Thibaut’s prominence suggests he was not a minor figure, and in fact had great power. He was also a character who generated gossip and fascination, which is why his music has potential interest for audiences . These legends added to his fame, and in turn, it seems that they created public interest in his
The book begins with a prologue, in which a letter is sent from a musician working for a cardinal in 1347. It is sent from the papal court of Avignon and is received by some of the musician's ...
The “Agnus Dei” of Guillaume Machaut’s Notre Dame Mass was created in the Medieval Time Period; it was the first polyphonic setting of mass by one composer. It was polyphonic because it used four voices, two tenors and two basses. It used one lower voice and a form of ABA. This piece used Timbre instruments such as brass. This piece by Guillaume Machaut used a triple meter and consisted of complex syncopation and rhythm. The two upper parts of this piece are active rhythmically while the two lower parts are longer in note values. Guillaume de Machaut was a brilliant poet and musician who was born in France. He loved to travel and wrote many songs consisting of love.
Daum, Gary. "Chapter 12 The Baroque Era (1600-1750)." Georgetown Prep. 1994. Georgetown University. 12 July 2005 .
Thiebaux, Marcelle. The Writings of Medieval Women: An Anthology. New York: Garland Publishing. 1994. Print.
Janice B. Stockigt, Jan Dismas Zelenka, 1679 – 1745: A Bohemian Musician at the Court of Dresden (Oxford, 2000)
He may even have been the first to sing the tragic love of Tristan and Isolde. One of Chretein de Troyes’ works, Chevalier de la Charette (The Knight of the Cart) expresses the doctrines of courtly love in its most developed form. The plot of this story is believed to have been given to him by Marie of Champagne and has been called “the perfect romance” for its portrayal of Queen Guinevere’s affair with Lancelot of the Lake.1
Harman, Alec, and Anthony Milner. Late Renaissance and Baroque Music. London: Barrie Books LTD., 1959. ML193.H37
Up through the Middle Ages, Western music was dominated by the church; it was all sacred music. The most artistic and refined secular music came from twelfth- and thirteenth-century composers called troubadours and trouveres. Bernart de Ventadorn was one of the most popular troubadour poets of his time. Ben m’an Perdut tells a story of a man’s unreciprocated love and his decision to leave Ventadorn as a result. The first piece after the intermission is another composition of Bernart titled Tan tai mo cor ple de joya.
...f. Th.Reinach, La musique grecque, Payot, Paris, 1926; C.Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World, W.W.Norton & Comp. Inc. New York, 1969.
There are two pieces in our Renaissance Era musical feature this evening, the first by Pierre Phalèse called Passamezzo d'Italye - Reprise – Gaillarde. Phalèse began as a bookseller in 1545 and not long after he set up a publishing house. By 1575 he had around 189 music books. Much of his work was devoted to sacred music but there was a small amount of Flemish songs and instrumental works. Phalèse borrowed work from many composers and did not hesitate to include other composer’s music in his works. The sec...
The story begins with the Marquise de Merteuil corresponding with Vicomte de Valmont regarding a luscious new act of ‘revenge’, as she describes it, against the Comte de Gercourt. The young Cecile de Volanges has just come home from the convent and her marriage to Gercourt has been arranged. However, before he can wed the innocent child, Merteuil proposes Valmont ‘educate’ her, thus spoiling Gercourt’s fancy for untarnished convent girls. Valmont is uninterested in such an easy seduction and is far more aroused by the thought of lulling The Presidente’ de Tourvel, the very epitome of virtue, into submission. And so the tale unfolds.
Harr, James. Essays on Italian Poetry and Music in the Renassisance: 1350-1600. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Following the history of the era in literature, many authors were fascinated by the courtly tradition, chivalry and a higher love. Therefore, we have today musical compositions that speak of many of the same ideas. French composers wrote songs in the vernacular called chansons de geste . These songs spoke of the heroic acts performed by knights for their ladies in the name of love. The French have a national epic called the Chanson de Roland which related the life and death of Charlemagne’s nephew and his endeavor to rid France of the Basques.
Moliere, Jean-Baptise Poquelin. 'Tartuffe.' The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Maynard Mack. New York: W.W. Norton " Company, 1995. 307 -356.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.