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Tag Archives: chanson

“Flow my tears,” by John Dowland

06 Tuesday Oct 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Britten, chanson, Heinrich Isaac, John Dowland, Lied, Musica transalpina, pavane, Ravel, the consort song, the lute song

giulio-campi-2

Bildnis eines Laurenspielers by Giulio Campi

http://Bildnis eines Laurenspielers by Giulio Campi, 1502-1572

John Noel Dowland (1563 – buried 20 February 1626) was an English composer and lutenist.  However, he was trained in France and, between 1580 and 1584, he worked in Paris as secretary, first, to English ambassador Sir Henry Cobham and, second, as secretary to Sir Edward Stafford.  During that period, John Dowland converted to Catholicism.[i]

However, Dowland also studied under Luca Marenzio, a celebrated Italian composer of madrigals.  Dowland was therefore acquainted with the Italian madrigal.  Yet, he was mostly the composer of monophonic and melancholy lute songs.

He drew from sources such as the

  • pavane, a slow courtly dance.  His Pavana Lachrymæ and other works have inspired Fauré, Ravel, Debussy and Benjamin Britten;
  • the fifteenth-century French chanson; and
  • the Germanic Lied.

Yet, there is an intensity to his songs that suggests a more personal form of inspiration.

With respect to the French chanson, he can be associated with Claudin de Sermisy (remember Tant que vivray),  Clément Janequin, Pierre de la Rue, Roland de Lassus (or Orlando di Lasso).  Although chanson composers and interpreters had been influenced by madrigals, the fifteenth-century French chanson was homophonic and has endured.

Heinrich Isaac :  Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen (click on title to hear)

As for the Lied, Dowland may have been influenced by Heinrich Isaac (c.1445 – 1517), a Franco-Flemish composer, born in Bruges (where else?), the composer of the immensely popular Innsbruck, Ich muss dich lassen.  Isaac’s student, Ludwig Senfl, (c.1486 – 1542/3) published posthumously Isaac’s three-volume Choralis constantinus.[ii] The Choralis constantinus contains:

  • 50 motets;
  • nearly 100 secular songs, including French chansons;
  • Italian frottole (plural for frottola);
  • and a large number of German Tenorlieder.

Motets are refined, polyphonic and, often, liturgical vocal works, brought to Venice by Adriaan Willaert.  As for the frottola, it was a popular song and an ancestor to the Italian madrigal.

Dowland as Precursor

Personally I also look upon Dowland as a precursor,

  • to Henry Purcell (10 September 1659 – 21 November 1695) and
  • to Franz Schubert, who gave the Germanic Lied a beauty that has yet to be surpassed.

Here, the common denominator is expressiveness and the importance of the solo singer.  In this regard, Dowland is a representative of Renaissance humanism in general.  Dowland knew how to set a text to music in a manner that touched the listener profoundly and touched exceptional listeners: Fauré, Ravel, Debussy and Benjamin Britten.

His contemporaries

In England, his contemporaries were Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) were Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623) and John Wilbye (baptised 7 March 1574 – September 1638), all of whom wrote madrigals, Wilbye in particular.  In 1588 Nicholas Yonge published the very successful Musica transalpina, a collection of Italian madrigals by Francesco Ferrabosco I and Marenzio.

From 1598 until 1606, Dowland worked for Christian IV of Denmark who paid a fortune to hear his music.  He was dismissed because of frequent absences.  Six years after his return to England, in early 1612, he became James I‘s lutenist, a position he held until his death.

Monophonic or Partsongs

Specifically, Dowland wrote through-composed[iii] monophonic songs to which he gave a relatively discreet lute accompaniment.  He is also the composer of partsongs, but to a lesser extent.  In the case of partsongs, singers were given their part and could sit around a small table and sight-read.

Dowland published his aptly-titled First Book of Songs in 1597.  His Second Booke of Ayres was published in 1600.  He also wrote consort songs.  These were songs written for solo singers accompanied by a consort of viols.

His Legacy

John Dowland’s Flow my tears and his Pavana Lachrymae, have long survived him.  As mentioned above, he has been a source of inspiration to Fauré, Ravel and Debussy, and his song Come Heavy Sleepe, the Image of True Death inspired Benjamin Britten‘s Nocturnal after John Dowland for guitar, 1964.

—ooo—

With my kindest regards to all of you. ♥

  • John Dowland: Flow my tears, a lute song;
  • John Dowland: Gaillarde, played by Julian Bream on the lute;
  • John Dowland: Lachrymæ antiquæ, played by Jordi Savall (embedded, below);
  • Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte (… for a Dead Princess), played by Sviatoslav Richter, piano; or by Laura Mikkola, piano.
Charles Mouton, the Lutenist by Francois de Troy, 1690 (Photo Credit: Google images

Charles Mouton, the Lutenist by Francois de Troy, Paris, 1690 (Photo Credit: Google images)


[i] In sixteenth-century France, Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) were persecuted. Remember the Massacre of the St. Bartholomew’s Day (1572).

[ii] The Choralis constantinus contained many liturgical chants, at times resembling Gregorian Chant.

[iii] Though-composed songs do not have stanzas and a refrain.

Flow my tears
Paul Agnew (Tenor)
Christopher Wilson (Lute)

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© Micheline Walker
29 November 2011
6 October 2015
WordPress
45.403816 -71.938314

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Clément Janequin’s “Le Chant des oyseaulx”

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Music, polyphony

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Canon, chanson, Clément Janequin, La Pléiade, Le Chant des oyseaulx, onomatopoia, Pierre de Ronsard, polyphony

Students of musicology smile or laugh when they hear the onomatopoeic effects of Clément Janequin‘s Le Chant des oyseaulx.

composer: Clément Janequin (c. 1485  – 1558)
work: Le Chant des oyseaulx
performers: Ensemble Clément Janequin
director: Dominique Visse
Dominique Visse (countertenor), Michel Laplénie (tenor), Philippe Cantor (baritone), Antoine Sicot (bass), Claude Debôves (lute)
 
 
1)
Reveillez vous, cueurs endormis/ Le dieu d’amour vous sonne.
À ce premier jour de may/ Oyseaulx feront merveilles/ Pour vous mettre hors d’esmay. / Destoupez vos oreilles./ Et farirariron, Et farirariron, Et farirarison,/
ferely, ioly, ioly, ioly, ioly, ioly,/ Et farirariron, farirariron, ferely, ioly/ Vous serez tous en joye mis,/ Car la saison est bonne. 

Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love calls you./ On this first day of May,/ The birds will make you marvel./ To lift yourself from dismay,/ Unclog your ears./ And fa la la la la (etc…)/ You will be moved to joy,/ For the season is good.

2)
Vous orrez, à mon advis,/ Une doulce musique,/ Que fera le roy mauvis,/ D’une voix authentique :/Ti, ti, pi-ti (etc…)/ Rire et gaudir c’est mon devis,/ Chacun s’i habandonne.

You will hear, I advise you,/ A sweet music/ That the royal blackbird will sing/ In a pure voice./ Ti, ti, pi-ti (etc…)/ To laugh and rejoice is my device,/ Each with abandon.

3)
Rossignol du boys joly,/ À qui la voix resonne,/ Pour vous mettre hors d’ennuy
Votre gorge iargonne:/ Fuyez, regretz, pleurs et soucy,/ Car la saison l’ordonne.

Nightingale of the pretty woods,/ Whose voice resounds,/ So you don’t become bored,/ Your throat jabbers away:/ Frian, frian (etc…)/ Flee, regrets, tears and worries,/ For the season commands it.

4)
Arrière; maistre coucou,/ Sortez de no chapitre,/ Chacun vous donne au hibou /
Car vous n’estes qu’un traistre,/ Car vous n’estes qu’un traistre,
Coucou, coucou, coucou, coucou,/ Par tra-i-son,/ en chacun nid,/ Pondez sans qu’on vous sonne,/ Reveillez vous, cueurs endormiz, reveillez vous, / Le dieu d’amours vous sonne.

Turn around, master cuckoo/  Get out of our company./  Each of us gives you a ‘bye-bye’/  For you are nothing but a traitor./  Cuckoo, cuckoo (etc…) / Treacherously in others’ nests,/  You lay without being called./  Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love is calling you.

—ooo—

There are several versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx. I used the lyrics provided by l’Ensemble Clément Janequin on YouTube. I believe our version has four stanzas. In order to look at various versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx, and translations into English, simply click on lyrics.*

* Retrieved from “http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Le_Chant_des_Oiseaux_(Cl%C3%A9ment_Janequin)&oldid=378489“

Clément Janequin

Clément Janequin (c. 1485  – 1558) was born in Châtellerault, near Poitiers, and was a French composer of the Renaissance. Clément Janequin’s music is programmatic[i] in that it has an extra-musical narrative, the singing of birds. Janequin’s main musical challenge was polyphony, mixing voices, an art that was developing in his era and was a challenge to all composers. At times, Le Chant des oyseaulx sounds like a canon and is just that, a canon.

By and large, Janequin held positions that earned him a meagre income, a matter he mentions in his will. He was a clerk to Lancelot du Fau the future Bishop of Luçon until the bishop’s death in 1523. He then held a similar position with the Bishop of Bordeaux. During that period of his life, he also became a priest and held appointments in Anjou.

His lifestyle improved after he met Jean de Guise and Charles de Ronsard, Pierre de Ronsard‘s brother. Pierre de Ronsard (11 September 1542 – 28 December 1585), the “Prince of Poets,” was the leader of an informal académie known as La Pléiade, named after the Alexandrian Pleiad, 3rd century BCE.

Clément Janequin was a very prolific songwriter. Guise and Ronsard helped him secure a position as curate at Unverre, near Chartres. At that point, he started to live in Paris and his chansons were extremely popular. In fact, Pierre Attaingnant[ii] (c. 1494 – late 1551 or 1552) printed five volumes of Janequin’s chansons. In Paris, Janequin also became “singer ordinary” of the King’s Chapel and later “composer ordinary.” Janequin composed very few sacred works.

Clément Janequin is best-known for Le Chant des oyseaulx and La Bataille, but also composed love songs, some of which are quite explicit. In fact, Le Chant des oyseaulx is a love song.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Pierre de Ronsard and the Carpe diem (Gather ye roses…)
  • La Pléiade: Du Bellay

Sources and Resources

As noted above, other versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx, and translations into English, can be found at http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Le_Chant_des_Oiseaux_(Cl%C3%A9ment_Janequin)&oldid=378489

_______________
 

[i] As opposed to “absolute” music, which is self-referential.
[ii]
 Significant figures in music printing are Ottaviano Petrucci, Pierre Attaingnant and, it would appear, John Rastell. In 1591, Petrucci  (18 June 1466 – 7 May 1539) published a book of chansons entitled Harmonice Musices Odhecaton.
Grigory Sokolov – Jean-Philippe Rameau ‘Le Rappel des oiseaux’ – YouTube

 
John James Audubon 1785 – 1851
Passenger Pidgeon
Musée de la Civilisation 2003 (QC) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
© Micheline Walker
6 October 2012
WordPress
45.408358 -71.934658

michelinewalker.com

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Do-ré-mi: the Chanson and the Madrigal

23 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Music

≈ Comments Off on Do-ré-mi: the Chanson and the Madrigal

Tags

Adriaan Willaert, chanson, Claudin de Sermizy, Clément Marot, Do-ré-mi, Guido d'Arezzo, Julie Andrews, madrigal, madrigalism, The Sound of Music

Raphael.angel.2

Angel with Lute by Raphael

Raphael (6 April or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520) High Renaissance

Earlier in history, singing monks had their Ut queant laxis to remember the “Do-Re-Mi.” But, a thousand years later our reference is Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s The Sound of Music‘ s (1959) “Do-Ré-Mi,” sung by Julie Andrews.

The Sound of Music

—ooo—

The history of musical notation is fascinating, but intricate.  As we saw in telling the story of fables and fairy tales, one often has to go back to an oral tradition, as did Guido d’Arezzo (991/992 – (17 May?) 1050).  When Guido chose the first syllables of the Ut queant laxis to exemplify and simplify his C-D-E-F-G-A set (a hexachord=6), he displayed ingenuity and vision.

—ooo—

Before Guido, reading music was well-nigh impossible.  So, he was very much a pioneer.  Our current notation system was not fully developed until the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras.  Even then, composers did not always provide vertical lines to separate “measures.”

Yet, music could be just as beautiful then as it can be today, except that there were extremes.  The chansons of the trouvères were simple and drew much of their beauty from their simplicity.  The little madrigal we used to illustrate the work of Franco-Flemish composer Adriaan Willaert, O quando a quando havea, is wonderfully uncomplicated.  Adriaan Willaert (c. 1490 – October 13, 1562) is the most celebrated Franco-Flemish musician, that one musician who founded the Venetian School.

But there came a point when composers so ornamented melodies that it resembled Rococo art and architecture.  The Madrigal developed into “madrigalism” or too ornate a piece of music.  The phenomenon was an extreme form of word-painting (setting a text to music).

In an earlier blog, on the idea of “absolute music,” I noted that music had long been considered too powerful a language.  As a result, words were used to restrain music, but there have been instances when words were also abused and a song much too decorated.

Given that I am a little tired today, allow me to provide you with a video that illustrates the polyphonic (many voices) madrigal.  My example is a famous madrigal by Claudio Monteverdi’s, 15 May 1567 (baptized) – 29 November 1643, entitled Cruda Amarilli (Cruel Amarilli). 

But for sheer pleasure, let us also listen to Claudin de Sermisy‘s (c. 1490 – 13 October 1562) Tant que vivray (1527), a simple through-composed (durchkomponiert) love chanson in which a young man pledges to love his “lady” for as long as he lives.  The words are by famous French poet Clément Marot (1496–1497– 1544), a French Huguenot who was imprisoned because of his beliefs.

Claudin precedes Monteverdi.  Both, however, are representatives of Renaissance songs:  the chanson and the madrigal.

Tant que vivray en asge florissant
Je serviray d’amours le roy puissant
En fais en ditz en chansons et accords.
Par plusieurs fois m’a tenu languissant
Mais après deuil m’a fait réjouissant
Car j’ay l’amour de la belle au gent corps.
 
Son alliance, c’est ma fiance,
Son cœur est mien, le mien est sien,
Fy de tristesse, Vive liesse,
Puisqu’en amour a tant de bien.
 
Quand je la veulx servir et honorer
Quand par escripts veux son nom décorer
Quand je la veoy & visite souvent
Ses envieux n’en font que murmurer
Mais notre amour n’en scauroit moins durer
Autant ou plus en emporte le vent
 
Malgré envie, toute ma vie
Je l’aimeray et chanteray,
C’est la première, c’est la dernière
Que j’ay servie et serviray.
 
 
 raphael1 (1)Madonna of Sistine Chapel by Raphael (1513)
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
  
© Micheline Walker
23 November  2011
WordPress 
 
45.410534 -71.910349

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