General Notes on Medieval Songs

Much of the best music written throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance comes from the Franco-Flemish tradition. The dominant influence of northern France, in particular, extends all the way back to the earliest extant manuscripts of polyphonic (i.e., multiple voice) music, if not earlier. The selections heard this evening were all written in the mid-15th century by three composers whose lifetimes overlapped a great deal. Listeners new to this repertory will notice an ebb and flow between dissonance and consonance, pungent cadential harmonies (in particular, the use of double leading tone cadences which went out of fashion by around 1500), rhythmic variety and syncopation, and occasional imitation between voice parts.
Dufay’s piece for the New Year celebrations, “Ce jour de l’an,” is an example of a rondeau—one of the three “fixed forms” of medieval French poetry (the others being the virelai and ballade). The form is highly repetitive and covers eight verses: ABaAabAB. Uppercase letters indicate the repeat of identical music and text, lowercase indicates the same music for different text; for example, verses 1 and 3 (A and a) use the same music for different words. The rondeau was extremely popular in the 14th and early 15th centuries. Dufay’s musical setting opens with a quasi-fugal series of evenly spaced points of imitation between the three voices. The pattern breaks off quickly, and the third voice to enter—the contra-tenor—is actually the first to move into the main body of text.
The somber “Adieu, adieu” is also a rondeau. And like many works from this era, Binchois’ composition has survived with text indicated only for the highest voice part. This fairly common situation has sparked debate over whether the lower parts were sung (and if so, on what syllables or text) or were performed by instrumentalists. Binchois has composed this piece in a rather pure C mode, not very different from a C major chorale of later date: for instance, the counter-tenor part has no chromatic tones, only diatonic pitches of the C mode. This tonal clarity lends a certain degree of simple charm and familiarity for modern ears.
Dunstaple, though only slightly older than Dufay and Binchois, was undoubtedly influential upon the younger musicians. Little is known for certain about his compositional life, though he seems to have been active in and around Paris between 1423 and 1435, and numerous copies of his works survived in continental manuscripts. One of the striking features about “O rosa bella” is language—not Dunstaple’s native English, not French or Latin, but Italian! Moreover, there is doubt over the work’s authenticity. In any case, the piece remains one of the treasures of the era, marked by a clear command of the ballata form (an Italian dance form similar to the virelai). Such features as triadic motif on “O rosa bella,” the careful pacing of cadence points on tonic and dominant keynotes, and occasional points of imitation between voices give the piece a sound that would remain à la mode for another 200 years.

(c) Jason Stell