Page 36 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

34 SECULAR MEDIEVAL MUSIC

Robin. The titular characters identify the piece as pantomime etiquette between a knight and
perform the bulk of the music, in (drama of spoken text with songs). an idealized lady, based on the
monophonic songs that de la Halle Halle’s comedy knew no limits—he principles of allegiance and fealty
created by setting his own lyrics poked fun at the church and its that defined a noble life. De la
to tunes in a popular style. corrupt clerics, at the people of Halle’s Robin and Marion played to
Some have called it the “first Arras, where he lived and worked, this idea, as a depiction of a knight
comic opera,” although modern and even his own family and life. trying to woo his love, but was
audiences might more readily also influenced by the French
Chivalric tales pastoral storytelling tradition.
The songs of both trobadors and Trobador verse has survived
Henry of Meissen performs at court
in the Codex Manesse (1300). The trouvères—have their roots in the well: there are more than 2,000
musician was called Frauenlob (“praise medieval culture of fin’amor (courtly extant poems composed by more
of women”) for his chivalric songs. love)—the chivalric code of than 450 known poets. However,
transmission of the musical
accompaniment for these songs is
patchy, with barely 10 percent of
the poems having their associated
melodies relayed in notation.
Trouvère activity in northern
France began with the 13th-century
poet Chrétien de Troyes, about 70
years after the first trobador in the
south. The number of surviving
trouvère songs is similar to that of
the southern corpus, but more than
60 percent of trouvère songs have
music—albeit without precise
information concerning rhythm.

Southern Europe
While trobadors and trouvères were
a distinct group of courtly poets
writing in specific poetic genres,

When I see the lark
Set flight for joy
toward the sun …
It’s a marvel that my heart
Does not melt with
longing at the sight.
Bernart de Ventadorn

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