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New light on musical aspects of the troubadour revival in Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Tess Knighton
Tess Knighton
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Cambridge
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Extract

The revival of the poetic art of the troubadours in eastern Spain from the latter part of the fourteenth century has been well documented. At this time, and through most of the fifteenth century, poet-courtiers at the royal courts of Aragon and Castile drew inspiration from the troubadours of the earlier centuries, many of whom had been active in the Spanish kingdoms. The historiographical tradition for this literary phenomenon begins with Gerónimo Zurita, the great chronicler of the Aragonese kings. In his Annies de la Corona de Aragón (1562–8), he discusses this renewed interest in the ‘Gay Science’ at the Aragonese royal court of Joan I (1387–96), and relates how letters came to prevail over arms at that time as the primary concern of the courtier:

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Articles
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Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , April 1993 , pp. 75 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 The major contribution, in English, to the subject is Boase, R., The Troubadour Revival: a Study of Social Change and Traditionalism in Late Medieval Spain (London, 1978)Google Scholar. Most Spanish literary histories and many Spanish writers refer to the literary troubadour revival, notably Torrents, J. Massó, La canco provencal en la literatura catalana (Barcelona, 1923)Google Scholar and Pidal, R. Mengndez, Poesia juglaresca y juglares (Madrid, 1924)Google Scholar.

2 Boase, , The Troubadour Revival, pp. 123–5Google Scholar, where he also reproduces the original.

3 de Riquer, M., Comas, A. and Molas, J., eds., História de la literatura catalana, II (Barcelona, 1964, Rl 1984), p. 65.Google Scholar

4 Riquer, et al, História, II, p. 144Google Scholar (Spanish original) and Boase, , The Troubadour Revival, p. 72 (English translation).Google Scholar

5 On Ramón Vidal de Besalú and his Ras`os de trobar, see Angles, H., La música a Catalunya fins al segle XIII (Barcelona 1935, R/1988), pp. 333–4.Google Scholar

6 Riquer, et al, Histdria, III, p. 420.Google Scholar

7 Boase, (The Troubadour Revival, p. 100Google Scholar) draws attention to this poem; it is published in full in Baselga y Ramírez, M., ed., Cancionero catalán de Zaragoza (Zaragoza, 1896), pp. 183–206Google Scholar.

8 Bach y Rita, P., The Works of Pere Torroella (New York, 1930)Google Scholar; the citations are identified in Massó Torrents, La canço provençal. The poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut is also cited in the course of this poem.

9 de Riquer, M. and Badia, L., eds., Les poesies de Jordi de Sant Jordi: cavalier valenciA del segle XV (Valencia, 1984), pp. 270–75.Google Scholar Lines 48–9 of the ‘Passió d'amor segons Ovidi’ present the first two lines of Atressi com I'olifants in Catalan: Atressi com l'orifany qui quant chay no.s pot Ievar.

10 Much of the documentary evidence for the patronage of music at the Aragonese royal court, in Barcelona and in Naples, is published in: Muntan´, Ma. C. Gó;mez, La música en la Casa Real Catalano-Aragonesa, 1336–1442, 1 (Barcelona, 1979Google Scholar), and in two major articles by Higini Anglès: ‘La música en la corte del Rey Don Alfonso V de Aragón, El Magnánimo (años 1413–20)’ and ‘La mú;sica en la corte real de Aragón y de Nápoles durante el reinado de Alfonso V el Magnánimo’, both published in López-Calo, J., ed., Higini Anglès: Scripta Musicologica, II (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975), pp. 913–62 and 963–1028.Google Scholar

11 Knighton, T., ‘Northern Influence on Cultural Developments in the Iberian Peninsula during the Fifteenth Century’, Renaissance Studies, 2 (1987), p. 230Google Scholar. Joan's letters are reproduced in Gómez Muntané, La música en la Casa Real.

12 Anglès, , ‘La música en la corte del Rey Don Alfonso’, Scripta Musicologica, II, p. 926.Google Scholar

13 For details of this source see: Anglès, , La música a Catalunya, p. 181Google Scholar (facsimile of Ermengau's Dregs de natura comanda) and pp. 404–5 (including a transcription).

14 Madrid, Bibloteca Nacional, MS 9750. Curial e Güelfa has been published several times in modern editions; the version followed here is that edited by A. Rubió i Lluch and published in Barcelona, 1901. Pamela Waley's English translation {Curial and Guelfa: London, 1982) is useful, as are her articles: ‘In Search of an Author for Curial e Güelfa: the French Clues’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 53 (1976), 117–26 and ‘Historical Names and Titles in Curial e Güelfa), in Deyermond, A., ed., Medieval Hispanic Studies (London, 1976), pp. 245–56Google Scholar. The Spanish literature on Curial e Güelfa is summarized in Riquer, et al, Histdria, 111, pp. 276–305Google Scholar and Bohigas, P., Aportació a I'estudi de la literatura catalana (Montserrat, 1982), pp. 117–26.Google Scholar

15 Waley, ‘In Search of an Author’, p. 124, summarizes her findings.

16 See especially Waley, ‘Historical Names and Titles’; Riquer, et al, História, III, pp. 288–90Google Scholar; and Tiriena, J., ed., Curial e Güelfa, 2nd edn (Barcelona, 1990), pp. 9–12.Google Scholar

17 Some of these references are interpreted in Knighton, T., ‘The A Cappella Heresy in Spain: an Inquisition into the Performance of the Cancionero Repertory’, Early Music, 20 (11 1992), 560–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Rubió i Lluch, I, p. 10:‘... tantost fonch molt bell cantador e apres sonar esturments, de que deuench molt famos; axi mateix caualcar, trouar, dancar, junyir e totes altres abteses que a noble joue e valeros se pertanyia’. The similarity between this description of the fictional hero Curial and that by a royal chronicler of Charles of Viana is striking: ‘fonch molt bel, molt savi, molt soptil, molt agut et molt clar enteniment, gran trobador, gran e bel sonador, dansador, cavalcador, complit de tota amor e gratia.’ (Boase, , The Troubadour Revival, p. 99)Google Scholar.

19 Rubió i Lluch, I, p. 105: ‘… els feu gran festa e pres una arpa e sona marauellosament axi com aquell quin ere gran maestre, e canta tan dolçament que no semblaua sino veu angelical e dolçor de parays'’.

20 On the rise of the lute as the instrument for the accompaniment of songs, see: Muntané, Ma. C. Gómez, ‘Some Precursors of the Spanish Lute School’, Early Music, 20 (11 1992), 583–93.Google Scholar

21 See Waley, ‘Historical Names and Titles’.

22 Rubió i Lluch, III, p. 459:‘…staua una altra Reyna, de varies colors vestida, empero molt ricament abillada, e staua tan alegre cantant que ago era una grand merauella. E tenia en la ma un cartell sent e notat a nota de cant, en lo qual miraua continuament e ab ana ploma esmenaua…’.

23 Blackburn, B. J., Lowinsky, E. E. and Miller, C. A., eds., A Correspondence of Renaissance Musicians (Oxford, 1991), pp. 120–23.Google Scholar

24 The vida (two versions) of Richart de Berbezilh and the razo of Atressi com I'olifants are reproduced in Varvaro, A., ed., Rigaut de Berbezilh: Liriche, Biblioteca di Filologia Romanza, 4 (Bari, 1960), pp. 76–83.Google Scholar

25 Favati, G., ed.,ll novellino: testo critico, introduzione e note (Genoa, 1970), pp. 269–75.Google Scholar A terminus post querm for the compilation of ll novellino is provided by a reference to a historical event of 1268. The Italian version of the song begins: ‘Alrressi come il leofante’.

26 For a summary of the author's identified borrowings see: Riquer, et al, História, III, pp. 298–303Google Scholar, and Tinena, , Curial e Güelfa, pp. 18–20Google Scholar. On the likelihood of II novellino and/or the razo being the source for the author of Curial e Güelfa see: Riquer, et al, História, III, p. 300Google Scholar: ‘Encara que l'autor del Curial pogue coneixer la razo, fa l'efecte que s'ha inspirat en el Novellino’. [Although the author of Curial e Güelfa could have known the razo, he would seem to have been inspired by the Novellino.]

27 On the relationship between the razo and the version of the story in 11 novellino see Favati, G., ‘La Novella LXIV del “Novellino” e Uc de Sant Circ’, Lettere Italiane, 11 (1959), 133–73.Google Scholar Favati points out that the material of significance common to the razo and the version in ll novellino consists of: (1) both Richart and Messer Alemanno enter a forest as recluses (a fact not specified in the song itself); and (2) the condition that it be 100 ladies and 100 knights who beg for mercy. Neither of these ideas is used by the author of Curial e Güelfa.

28 Atressi com l'olifants que, quand chai no's pot levar tro que l'autre amb lor cridar, de lor votz lo levan sus, et ieu segrai aquel us, car mos mesfaits m'es tan greus e pesants que si li corts del Puoi e'l rics bobants e l'adreits pretz dels leials amadors no'm relevan, jamai non serai sors, que denhesson per mi clamar merce lai ont prejars ni merces no'm val re[n]. [Just as the elephant once fallen cannot rise until the others with their cries make him get up again, so must I follow this custom, for my misdeeds are so grave and serious that unless the skilful praise of faithful lovers at the court of Le Puy in all its splendour raises me, I shall never be on my feet again, for they must beg mercy on my own behalf where my own prayers and supplications have failed me.]

29 Rubió i Lluch, III, p. 409: ‘Cantaua molt be Cammar, e Johan mostrali moltes cantiques, e ab acorts cantaua ab ella’.

30 Rubió i Lluch, III, p. 439: ‘E tanta era lur alegria, que Johan, qui Curial hauia nom, pensant en la Guelfa e en lexili seu del Marquesat de Montferrat e de les paraules que la Guelfa hauia dites, que si la Cort de Puig els leals amadors no la pregassen, null temps li perdonaria, axi com aquell qui era gran trobador feu una cango que diu: “Atressi com laurifany”’.

31 Rubió i Lluch, III, pp. 451–2: ‘E axi com aquests dos catius foren dauant ella, fonch los manets que cantassen; ells comencaren a cantar la canço del orifany. La Güelfa que oyhi aquella canço, marauellas molt e manals que la tornassen a cantar, e axi ho feren.’

32 Rubió i Lluch, III, p. 527, n. 10, notes the space left blank by the copyist and believes that the poem was omitted beyond the first line possibly because the copyist did not understand the Provencal text ('sens dupte lo copista pensa transcriure mes tart. Tal volta ho dexa de fer per no entendre lo text provencaT). As there is no reason to doubt that a Catalan version of the text of the song would not have been in circulation, this does not seem a convincing argument.

33 Three melodies for Atressi com I'olifants survive in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, R 71 sup., f. 63 (copied northern Italy, early fourteenth century); Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, fr. 844 (Olim Mazarin 96), ‘Manuscrit du Roi’, f. 195v; and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 20.050 (Olim Saint Germain, fr. 1989), ‘Chansonnier de Saint-Germain des Pres’ (copied mid-thirteenth century). See I. Fernández de la Cuesta, ed., Les cançons dels trobadors, Institut d'Estudis Occitans (Toulouse, 1979), pp. 75–9; and van der Werf, H., The extant troubadour melodies (Rochester, NY, 1984), pp. 334*–7*Google Scholar.

34 Egan, M., trans., The Vidas of the Troubadours, Garland Library of Medieval Literature, 6B (New York and London, 1984), p. 100.Google Scholar