Tag: medieval
My chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy has just appeared.
A brief look at another vernacular song tradition.
A brief overview of how medieval vernacular songs might inform and be informed by the social contexts that produced and consumed them.
This page hosts the audio for the first of my six ‘podlectures’ on Vernacular Song for List A Compulsory Topics (final year exams) at Oxford, delivered in this form because of ongoing restrictions caused by the current pandemic. It also gives links to some further reading and things mentioned in the audio.
NB: These podlectures form only part of the Vernacular Song topic as taught at Oxford, which is significantly supplemented by additional teaching in tutorials that demand extensive reading, essays, and presentations.
Podlecture 1: The Troubadours 1
Good general reading
- Akehurst, F. R. P. and Judith M. Davis, eds. A Handbook of the Troubadours. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
- Gaunt, Simon and Sarah Kay, eds. The Troubadours: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
- Rosenberg, Samuel N., Margaret Switten, and Gérard Le Vot, eds. Songs of the Troubadours and Trouvères: An Anthology of Poems and Melodies. New York and London: Garland, 1998 [book contains a CD of some of the music].
- Stevens, Butterfield and Karp, ‘Troubadours, Trouvères’, Grove Music Online (2001), https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.28468.
Referring to individual troubadour songs
- Pillet, Alfred, and Henry Carstens. Bibliographie der Troubadours. Halle (Saale): Max Niemeyer, 1933.
On the music
- Aubrey, Elizabeth. The Music of the Troubadours. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996.
- Switten, Margaret, ed. The Cansos of Raimon de Miraval: a Study of Poems and Melodies. Cambridge, MA, 1985.
Handy access to poems and translations
http://www.trobar.org/troubadours/
Information about recordings
http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/composers/trobador/
Information about manuscript images online
https://eeleach.blog/2012/01/17/the-wonders-of-gallica-some-troubadour-and-trouvere-sources/
TEST YOURSELF
Check you know what, who, or where these are:
- vida
- razo
- coblas dobla
- Occitan
- Jaufre Rudel, or, if you have a subscription, try Grove online
- Bernart de Ventadorn, or, if you have a subscription, try Grove online
- senhal, and, if you have good Italian and are feeling generous, why not translate this page for English Wikipedia as the best thing in English is paywalled on Grove Music Online.
- PC numbers
- Eleanor of Aquitaine
- Beaumont Palace, Oxford
This final podlecture is a short introduction to Machaut’s Motets.
Podlecture 3 is about Machaut as a multimedia artist.
Long-gestating co-editing project finally published as part of 700-page book.
This clerihew didn’t make it into my review of this new volume of essays on Adam de la Halle:
Last month (June 2019), I took part in a two-day performance workshop organised by Joseph W. Mason and attended by various other people I’ve worked with over the past decade or so. I introduced and advised on performances of a song by Blondel de Nesle (people who have heard me sing will be happy to hear that I delegated that task to others far better qualified!). Joe has written an excellent account of the entire event, obviating the need for me to do so here. I refer you enthusiastically to his blogpost, which has embedded audio-visual footage of the public concert that resulted. Enjoy!
Elizabeth Eva Leach 