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The Lais of Guillaume de Machaut and Their Background

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1955

Gilbert Reaney
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Extract

The Total number of pre-fourteenth century lais published with music is twenty-six, of which the greater part, seventeen, may be found in the valuable Chansonnier Noailles. The Provençal lais were usually called descorts, of which Jeanroy has traced twenty-three, though only two of these are provided with music and one is incomplete. Various views have been put forward as to the meaning of the word descort, but as with so many medieval terms the meaning seems to remain general. Descort means disagreement of any kind, and this may apply to contrast between the mood of poetry and music, to diversity of poetic and musical structure, or some dispute in the text, and to any difference between the music of the descort and that of other forms, etc.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 82 , 1955 , pp. 15 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1955

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References

1 Paris MS., Bibl. Nat., fonds français 12615.Google Scholar

2 Article ‘Descort’ in La grande encyclopédie, XIV, Paris [1887–1902], p. 228b-230c.Google Scholar

3 Cf. the Doctrine de compondre dictatz, quoted ibid.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.Google Scholar

5 f. 72.Google Scholar

6 f. 73v.Google Scholar

7 f. 440v.Google Scholar

8 f. 28v. Cf. the MS. facsimile in Pierre Aubry, Le Roman de Fauvel, Paris, 1907 (music only).Google Scholar

9 ff. 22–23.Google Scholar

10 Edition of the texts by Emilie Dahnk, L'hérésie de Fauvel, Leipzig, 1935.Google Scholar

11 Hans Spanke, ‘Sequenz und Lai’, Studi medievali, XI (1938), pp. 37–68.Google Scholar

12 Transcription in Friedrich Gennrich, ‘Zwei altfranzösische Lais’, Studi medievali, XV (1942), pp. 4–12.Google Scholar

13 Alfred Jeanroy, Pierre Aubry and Louis Brandin, Lais et descorts du XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1901, pp. 3–69.Google Scholar

14 See note 11.Google Scholar

15 Text editions in Dahnk, op. cit., pp. 91ff, 100ff, 155ff, 187ff.Google Scholar

16 Text editions in Valdemar Chichmaref, Guillaume de Machaut: Poésies lyriques, II Paris, 1909, pp. 279ff.Google Scholar

17 New Oxford History of Music, II, ed. Dom Anselm Hughes, London 1954, p. 250.Google Scholar

18 ‘Internationale mittelalterliche Melodien’, Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, XI (1928–9), pp. 346f.Google Scholar

19 Lais et descorts, no. XXVII.Google Scholar

20 Ibid, no. XXIV.Google Scholar

21 Armand Machabey, Guillaume de Machault, I, Paris 1955, p. 108, note 305.Google Scholar

22 Lais et descorts, p. xv.Google Scholar

23 See Gennrich, Friedrich, Rondeaux, Virelais und Balladen, I, 1921, p. 85; cf. II, 1927, p. 96f.Google Scholar

24 Transcription in Alfred Einstein, A Short History of Music, 2nd ed., London, 1938, p. 260. Original two-part conductus in Wolfenbüttel MS. 677, f. 100v and Florence, Bibl. Laur., Pluteus, 29.1, f. 318v; in mensural notation without the discant and with new satirical text in Fauvel, f. 4v.Google Scholar

25 Lais et descorts, no. XXIX.Google Scholar

26 Upsala, Univ. Libr., MS. C 233. Facsimile in J. Beveridge, ‘Two Scottish Thirteenth Century Songs’, Music and Letters, XX (1939), facing p. 353. Transcription in Apel and Davison, Historical Anthology of Music, 1947, no. 25c. More striking is the resemblance with Abelard's planctus, pointed out by Spanke, Studi medievali, XI (1938), p. 58, and elaborated by G. Vecchi, ‘Sequenza e lai’, Studi medievali, XVI (1943–50), pp. 86–101.Google Scholar

27 Lais et descorts, no. XXIII.Google Scholar

28 Most recently printed in Gennrich, ‘Refrain-Tropen in der Musik des Mittelalters’, Studi medievali, XVI (1943–50), p. 250; cf. catalogue of refrains in his Rondeaux, Virelais und Balladen, II, Dresden, 1927, no. 780.Google Scholar

29 Lais et descorts, no. XVIII.Google Scholar

30 See Théodore Gérold, La musique au moyen âge, 1932, pp. 375, 383.Google Scholar

31 Quoted in full from British Museum, Harley MS. 527, f. 66–66v. in F. J. Wolf, Über die Lais, Sequenzen und Leiche, Heidelberg 1841, pp. 464f.Google Scholar

32 Cf. Jacques Handschin, Musikgeschichte im Überblick, 1948, p. 152.Google Scholar

33 ‘Talant que j'ai’ f. 17–18v, ‘Je qui poair seule ay’ f. 19–19v, ‘Pour recouvrer alegiance’ f. 28 bis-28 ter v, ‘En ce dous temps d'esté’ f. 34v-36v.Google Scholar

34 Cf. E. Langlois, Recueil d'arts de seconde rhétorique, 1903, pp. 17, 166.Google Scholar

35 En ce dous temps d'esté'.Google Scholar

36 Cf. the Tripla of Machaut motet 13 and Fauvel motet à 3 no. 3; and the use of the same unidentified tenor ‘Ruina’ in Machaut motet 13 and Fauvel motet à 3 no. 1.Google Scholar

37 Published by Ernest Hopffner, Oeuvres de Machaut, II, 1911, pp. 1–157, with musical appendix by Friedrich Ludwig, pp. 405ff. These works are also published without the extensive critical apparatus in Ludwig's complete edition of Machaut's musical works, I, 1926, pp. 93–103.Google Scholar

38 Paris, Bibl. Nat., fonds français 9221.Google Scholar

39 Paris, Bibl. Nat., fonds français 1584 and 22546.Google Scholar

40 Cf. my article ‘A Chronology of the Ballades, Rondeaux and Virelais set to Music by Guillaume de Machaut’, Musica Disciplina, VI (1952), p. 35.Google Scholar

41 Lais 5, 6, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22.Google Scholar

42 Lai 7.Google Scholar

43 Lai 24.Google Scholar

44 Cf. my article ‘Musica ficta in the Music of Guillaume de Machaut’, Compte-rendu du Colloque International d'Ars Nova, Liège, 1955, 1956.Google Scholar

45 Cf. the principal manuscripts A, G, and E; the last however is to be dated c. 1400 at the earliest. I have not been able to see the de Vogué MS., which is apparently now in New York.Google Scholar

46 Cf. lai 10, stanza 5 and lai 12, stanza 8.Google Scholar

47 Lais 21 and 24.Google Scholar

48 Guillaume de Machault I, p. 125.Google Scholar

49 Strophe 8, bars 76–79.Google Scholar

50 Strophe 10.Google Scholar

51 Paris, Bibl. Nat., fonds français 1586.Google Scholar

52 Otto Gombosi, ‘Machaut's Messe Notre Dame’, Musical Quarterly, XXXVI (1950), pp. 220ff. See also the similar analyses of the Mass on the pages preceding.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Cf. my article ‘The Ballades, Rondeaux and Virelais of Guillaume de Machaut: Melody, Rhythm and Form’, Acta Musicologica, XXVII (1955). pp. 51 and 57f.Google Scholar