Tag Archives: Songs
Vernacular song (list A) lecture 4
A brief look at another vernacular song tradition. Continue reading Vernacular song (list A) lecture 4
Vernacular song (list A) lecture 6
This lecture looks at the reception of monophonic medieval vernacular song, from the earliest manuscript copies to modern performances. Continue reading Vernacular song (list A) lecture 6
Vernacular song (list A) lecture 5
A brief overview of how medieval vernacular songs might inform and be informed by the social contexts that produced and consumed them. Continue reading Vernacular song (list A) lecture 5
Vernacular song (list A) lecture 1
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
Machaut (Prelims) lecture 5
This podlecture gives an introduction to my method of analysing 14thC counterpoint and, in passing, gives some detail on the forms of the rondeau. Continue reading Machaut (Prelims) lecture 5
Machaut (Prelims) lecture 3
Podlecture 3 is about Machaut as a multimedia artist. Continue reading Machaut (Prelims) lecture 3
Review of a new collection of essays on Adam de la Halle
This clerihew didn’t make it into my review of this new volume of essays on Adam de la Halle: Continue reading Review of a new collection of essays on Adam de la Halle
Imagining the performance of trouvère song
My article treating a ‘boring’ song by Blondel de Nesle has just been published by Early Music. Continue reading Imagining the performance of trouvère song
Hey, shepherd, stop your boastful song!
My article on a two-stanza pastourelle in Douce 308 has just appeared in Plainsong and Medieval Music. Here with added sound files! Continue reading Hey, shepherd, stop your boastful song!