La Romanesca Monodies 1 Istanpitta Ghaetta (Anonymous, 14Th Century) 8’52” 2 Lo Vers Comenssa (Marcabru, Fl
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La Romanesca Monodies 1 Istanpitta Ghaetta (anonymous, 14th century) 8’52” 2 Lo vers comenssa (Marcabru, fl. 1127-1150) 6’44” 3 Lo vers comens can vei del fau (Marcabru) 5’15” 4 Saltarello (anonymous, 14th century) 4’16” 5 L’autrier jost’ una sebissa (Marcabru) 5’04” 6 Bel m’es quant son li fruit madur (Marcabru) 9’15” 7 Istanpitta Palamento (anonymous, 14th century) 7’40” Cantigas de amigo (Martin Codax, 13th century) 8 Ondas do mar de Vigo 4’28” 9 Mandad’ ei comigo 3’58” 10 Miña irmana fremosa iredes comigo 3’15” 11 Ay Deus, se sab’ ora o meu amigo 3’30” 12 Quantas sabedes amar amigo 2’02” 13 Eno sagrado Vigo 3’07” 14 Ay ondas que eu vin ver 2’11” Hartley Newnham – voice, percussion Ruth Wilkinson – recorder, vielle, tenor viol Ros Bandt – recorder, flute, psaltery, rebec, percussion John Griffiths – lute, guitarra morisca Monodies La Romanesca P 1982 / 2005 Move Records expanded edition of Medieval Monodies – total playing time 70 minutes move.com.au he poet-musicians Marcabru and Uncompromising are his attacks on false of Lo vers comens can vei del fau, similarly Martin Codax occupy important lovers who debase the integrity of true love. derived from a later contrafactum version in Tplaces in the history of medieval Undisguised is his criticism of the excesses manuscript Paris, Bib. Nat. f. lat. 3719. secular song. Marcabru is the earliest southern of the nobility whom he served. Such is his Of much safer attribution, Bel m’es quant French troubadour whose music survives, and venom that one of his biographers comments son li fruit madur is the most sophisticated Martin Codax’s songs are the oldest relics of that “he scorns women and love”. Marcabru of Marcabru’s surviving melodies. Its text Iberian secular music. More than a thousand is a realist, constantly measuring his idealism delivers yet another moralistic attack on false kilometres and perhaps a hundred years against social reality. The paired songs Lo love and insincerity and does so with pungent separate them, yet their works are branches vers comenssa and Lo vers comens can vei images and great richness of language. These of the same tree. Each poet is an articulate del fau are both fine examples of Marcabru’s qualities are accentuated in La Romanesca’s observer of his own world, a commentator biting tongue. In the first, he speaks of wisdom performance by the freely declamatory vocal on social values, and a deft painter of human gained through the experience of life and style and the use of the incisive sounding character and emotion. courtly society and laments the falseness of lute identified in contemporary Spanish Marcabru was active in the second quarter the nobility and the debasement of love with writings as a guitarra morisca to provide the of the twelfth century. Records indicate him a tone of complete desperation. Even though accompaniment. to have been active between 1127 and 1150. he admits only to dealing with his theme in By comparison, the pastorela, L’autrier Of the two biographical vidas included in the most generalised fashion (“It’s true that jost’ una sebissa initially appears a light- troubadour manuscripts, one describes him I’m not being explicit/ at present nor shall I, hearted romp. Marcabru, however, turns the as a Gascon, the son of a poor woman; the / nor should I”), he contrasts it sharply with tables on the pastorela genre to offer a poem other calls him a foundling. His earliest the optimistic view of a world in which love in which the dialogue between a fast-talking known patron was Guillaume X (†1137), duke is respected and venerated. The same theme is knight and feisty shepherdess does not lead to of Aquitaine and son of the earliest known reiterated in Lo vers comens can vei del fau the customary successful seduction, in which troubadour William IX of Aquitaine. Marcabru but the references are more specific. Marcabru man exerts power over woman, and nobility was widely travelled, having enjoyed the places himself among the most morally over peasantry. Although the earliest known patronage of royalty and nobility throughout courageous of troubadours, he praises Poitou example of its genre, it too makes mockery southern France and Spain, notably at the court and its people, and makes specific references of tradition. Set in habitual dialogue mode, of Spanish emperor Alfonso VII of León. More to corruption in Rome and to the roughneck it tells of an encounter ‘beside a hedge,’ both than forty of Marcabru’s poems survive –all culture of his neighbouring Angevins. a morally shady place as well as the pastoral written in Occitans– but only a handful of his Scholarly opinion is divided concerning the neutrality of Arcadia. The shepherdess turns melodies. Four of these are undisputedly the authenticity of both these melodies. In the case the tables on the knight’s well rehearsed poet’s own compositions, but not all scholars of Lo vers comenssa, it was the scholar Hans amorous repartee, cutting him to size and agree on the total number. Spanke who drew attention to the unusually revealing herself not as a naïve country girl The dream world of courtly love is not close poetic similarities between this song and but as a strong, real character who ‘with grim Marcabru’s world. The writers of the vidas the anonymous trouvere song Costume et us humour and stabbing shrewdness demolishes point to his terse and merciless poetry, to in the Chansonnier Cangé and suggested its her lover’s Arcadian fantasy as a romantic its moral tone. Above all, Marcabru is a melody perhaps to have been derived from falsehood’. In the performance, the dialogue is critic of falseness, particularly of false love. Marcabru. Similar doubts surround the melody accentuated by the alternation of baritone and countertenor registers of voice. The melody Gallician-Portuguese, the literary language of The songs make up a symmetrically has been interpreted rhythmically according medieval Spain the songs are set in the town of constructed cycle depicting the girl’s love from to the character of the text, although the Vigo on the north-west coast, possibly Codax’s different angles. Songs 1, 4, and 7 lament her troubadour manuscripts give no indication of home. They probably date from the first part loneliness and desperation. No 2 is optimistic rhythm in the way the melodies of the songs of the thirteenth century, Cantigas de amigo while no 6 is a bailada or dance song. In songs are notated. Vielle and psaltery improvise a express women’s love and are a feature of 3 and 5 our lover engages others to help share heterophonic web around the vocal line. Gallician-Portuguese repertory. They belong her anxiety. Within this context, the various The most sophisticated instrumental to the family of European courtly love poetry, performance options are determined, including music that survives from the middle ages is but are strongly influenced by native Spanish the choice of rhythmic or free treatment of associated with dance. Of the few known popular verse. They use refrains and a system the melodies, instrumentation, and the style sources, the most extended and challenging of paired stanzas where the second line of of the improvised accompaniments. These are pieces are preserved in a fourteenth-century each stanza becomes the first line of the next strongly intuitive realisations firmly guided by manuscript of Italian origin, now in the British pair. This technique produces economical historical research. The melody used for the Library, MS. Add. 29987. These pieces are poetry, unified by a subtle transmutation and sixth song is adapted from one of the Cantigas cast in the rondo-like form of the istanpitta development of ideas. Although nearly 1700 de Santa María of Alfonso X, ‘the Wise’ (r. and with long extending melodies that Spanish love lyrics are extant, the melodies 1252-1284). The practice of contrafactum, the incorporate frequent repetition of the opening of six of Codax’s seven songs are the sole adaptation of an existing melody to a new text, refrain. As with La Romanesca’s performances survivors of the entire musical tradition. The has been shown to apply to cantigas de amigo of medieval song, these pieces are played here Codax manuscript, now in New York, was and other medieval Spanish song. in a way that attempts to recreate plausible discovered in Madrid a century ago used as a JOHN GRIFFITHS readings of music about whose performance flyleaf in an eighteenth-century binding of a we know incredibly little. Following the fourteenth-century Cicero manuscript. evidence of literary and pictorial sources, our The Cantigas de amigo of Codax are versions use simple instrumental groupings undoubtedly among the most beautiful of the and the performances attempt to strike a Gallician-Portuguese repertory. They are also balance between contemporary expectations typical of it: they are cast in conventional and our view of medieval musical reality. forms and draw on conventual imagery and Evidence points to the prominence of bowed vocabulary. Their persistent reference to the string instruments in early instrumental sea reflects the maritime life of the region, music and song accompaniment. Istanpitta and adds a dimension of unknowable eternity. Palamento is performed in this manner with They deal with a woman’s loneliness, her lute and percussion, while the Istanpitta frustration by the absence of her lover, and Gaetta uses recorder over plucked drones, place her sensual love in a religious setting. and the Saltarello is performed on lute with a She waits in the church in Vigo overlooking simple drummed accompaniment.