Poetry and Music

the example of Clément Marot Transgressions

• “Transgressio”: go to the other side, cross over • ‘transgress’ into the field of music • An amateur and a dilettante • But we have some guidance:

We are Standing on the shoulders of giants… Encyclopedic manuscript containing allegorical and medical drawings, Library of Congress, Rosenwald 4, Bl. 5r Musicological Giants

• François Lesure, Howard Mayer Brown, Lawrence Bernstein, • Frank Dobbins • Peter Woetmann Christoffersen • Pierre Pidoux, Edith Weber • All musicians… The proof of all statements about music is in the listening. The outdoor concert

Unknown Italian master Hôtel Lallemant (Bourges) A wonderful database

Ricercar, Programma de recherche en musicologie (CESR) http://ricercar.cesr.univ-tours.fr/3-programmes/basechanson/index.htm Recherche:

Total number of hits: 458 Marot ?

Total number of hits minus Jean Marot (35) = 423 Some figures

Number of times a poem was set to music Lesure 1951 Coeurdevey 1997 Ricercar 2011 Marot 234 371 423 Mellin de StG 143 Ronsard 395

Differentiating composers & texts (Coeurdevey) composers texts Marot 90 151 Mellin de StG ? 75 Ronsard 43 112 Why was Marot so popular?

• Because of the inherent musical quality of his poetic output, – Good poetry is ‘music’ – ‘ho melooidos’ = the poet • Because of the music by Claudin De Sermisy – ‘hè melooidia’ is the act of singing • Refinement of the traditional form of the lyrical (both text & music) • The key to the success of Marot’s is their conventionality Just an association

• “ We dwell with satisfaction upon the poet's difference from his predecessors, especially his immediate predecessors; we endeavour to find something that can be isolated in order to be enjoyed. Whereas if we approach a poet without this prejudice we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously. And I do not mean the impressionable period of adolescence, but the period of full maturity.” • T.S. Eliot (1919), Tradition and the individual Talent

“One should not talk about Music, but listen to what it says.”

Time for some transgressions… 1450 or 2011

L’Amour de moy

• Ms. Bayeux, Ms. Fr. 12744. • Jardin de Plaisance 1501 • Version à 4 Petrucci 1504 • Versions by A. Bruhier, J. Richafort How to write a succesful chanson

• The form: 8 or 10 syllables. • a caesura after the first four syllables (often dactylic) • An ornamented cadence at the end. • Topics treated and ‘atmosphere’

Chansons nouvelles en musique a quatre parties (Attaingnant, 1528)

• 31 chansons • 17 with music by Claudin De Sermisy • 9 with texts by Marot.

All Marot’s chansons (1528)

• 1. Secourez moy, ma dame, par amours [7x10] • 2. Tant que vivray en aage florissant [[6x10 / 6x4 / 1x8] • 3. Dont vient cela, belle, je vous supply [7x10] • 5. Jouyssance vous donneray [6x8] • 19. Changeons propos, c’est trop chanté d’amours [7x10] • 20. J’attens secours de ma seule pensée [4x10] • 21. Languir me fais sans t’avoir offensé [4x10] • 26. Longtemps y a que je viz en espoir [5x10] • 30. J’ay contenté / ma volounté [8x4 / 4x8]

Chansons ‘nouvelles’

• The novelty of Attaingnant’s books is that the already familiar chansons are now being printed • The chansons nouvelles date back to the early 1520s (proof: Ms. Cop1848) • In the 1550s a ‘canon’ of the ‘French chanson’ was formed (the “old” ones) • Printed in 1560: Phalèse (Leuven) septiesme livre • Reprinted numerous times even until…. The ‘canon’ of chansons One example: Languir me fais

Languir me fais sans t'avoir offensée, Plus ne m'escriptz, plus de moy ne t'enquiers, Mais nonobstant, aultre Dame ne quiers ; Plus tost mourir, que changer ma pensée.

[vocal, on clavichord, on viola da gamba]

Jouyssance (tenor 1528) The perfect courtier

…. it ought to have been quite enough for you to make this Court Lady beautiful, discreet, chaste, gracious, and able (without incurring infamy) to entertain with dancing, music, games, laughter, witticisms, and the other things which we see used at court every day…. BOOK III, 11 (Gaspare Pallavicino (misogynist)) Life at court: the King and his Sister Life at court: the King and his Sister and some courtiers

Jouyssance

Lute/ German flute Soprano: Arianna Savall

Jouyssance vous donneray, Mon Amy, et vous meneray La ou pretend vostre esperance. Vivante ne vous laisseray, Encores, quand morte seray, L'esprit en aura souvenance

Master of the female half-lengths, Antwerpen

Los Angeles, 4 vv Leningrad, 3 vv Rohrau, 3 vv Flute plays tenor Flute plays tenor Flute plays superius Singer sings superius Singer sings superius Singer ?? playing Magdalene

Song: “J’aime m’amye…” Song: “J’aime m’amye…”

But below: “Jouyssance…” La Musique et la Danse

Basse dance: “Jouyssance…” Bis, non in idem: the Psalms Psalmes de David… Anvers 1541 Psalmes de David… Anvers 1541

Contrafacts

• Most religious poems (Psalms or Songs) were meant to be sung on the melodies of popular songs (contrafact). • People will have tried to sing Marot’s Palms ‘contrafactum’ as well. • The original metrical form of most of his texts make this hard to do.

Calvin’s briljant idea (1539) Calvin’s briljant idea (1539) In the meantime, in Lyon, 1540 In the meantime, in Lyon, 1540

The first four

• 1540 : ‘Abel’: ps. 137: Estans assis (Jacques Moderne, Parangon des chansons, siziesme livre, Lyon) • 1542 : Benedictus Appenzeller : Ps 130 : Du fond de ma pensée (Loys/Buus, chansons a 4 parties, Antwerpen) • 1544 : Gentian : Ps 130 : Du fons de ma pensée (Jacques Moderne, le difficile des chansons, deuxiesme livre, Lyon) • 1545 : Pierre de Manchicourt : Ps 130 : Du fond de ma pensée (Tylman Susato, neuviesme livre, Antwerpen) Appenzeller/Buus, 1542 Gentian/Moderne, 1544 De Manchicourt/Susato, 1545 Encore: polyphony

Jean Richafort (c. 1480- c.1547) Abel, Ps. 137 Transcription of the first bars: psalm- in polyphonic style, no reference to a melody 23 October, 2011 Vrieselhof - Schilde Members of the Antwerps Collegium Musicum

First recording Abel, Estans assis (ps. 137) and Gentian, Du fons de ma pensee (ps. 130) Made on the occasion of the 14th C.A. Mayer Memorial Lecture Abel, Estans assis

• Beginning of part One Estans assis aux rives aquacticques de Babilon pleurions melancolicques, nous souvenans du pays de syon… Abel, Estans assis

• Beginning of “troisiesme partie” Mais donc seigneur, en ta memoire imprime les filz d'edom que sur hierosolyme crioyent au jour que l'on la destruisoit, Souvienne toy qu’ung chascun d'eulx disoit, « A sac, a sac, qu'elle soit embrasee… » Two developments

From the text From the melody • Inspiration: content or • Inspiration: Choralmelody wording of the text from the hymnbook • Motet as a model • Chanson as model • Polyphonic settings • Homophonic settings • Horizontal conception • Vertical harmony • Plurality of musical motives • Cantus firmus with the • Dominant: imitative other voices around: counterpoint • Polyphonic settings

Psalms of Marot

Poems to Prayers to read and shape liturgy meditate

Inspiration for Melodies musicians

Melodic Polyphonic Hymnbook of material for Psalm the Church musicians 1546, Paris at last… Marot and Music

• A ung sien Amy

...Abandonné jamais ne m’a la Muse. Aulcun n’a sceu avoir puissance là; Le Roy portoit mon bon droict en cela. Et tant qu’ouy & nenny se dira Par l’univers le monde me lira.

Marot and Music

• A ung sien Amy (bis)

...Abandonné jamais ne m’a la Muse. Aulcun n’a sceu avoir puissance là; Le Roy portoit mon bon droict en cela. Et tant que psaume & chanson se dira Par l’univers le monde me lira.

Tant que vivray…

La mort n’y mord What time is it now? The first musical setting

• 1540 is the date; Lyon is the place, not Paris. • The Villemadon Letter is the work of a protestant pamphleteer in the , giving the Huguenot Psalter its ‘mythe fondateur’. • The story about Henry & the courtiers singing their favorite Psalms to wordly tunes and dances is the work of a roman catholic polemist and spindoctor (Florimond de Raemond ca. 1600) who lingers on this idea to show the profanation of the Holy Psalms by the Protestants. • Both legends obscure the real state of affairs in musikè : • ‘Abel’ in Lyon is the first one who made a musical setting of a Marot Psalm. Estans assis

Transcription Vrieselhof