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Music in French Theatre of the Late Sixteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Frank Dobbins
Frank Dobbins
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths' CollegeUniversity of London
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Extract

In his first major published monograph, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1400–1550 (Cambridge, MA, 1963), Howard Mayer Brown skilfully plotted the development of musical practices in the traditions of farces, sotties, moralities and monologues until the middle of the sixteenth century, by which time the ‘influence of works from the ancient world and from Italy’ had turned the ‘current of educated opinion … against the older French forms’. Thus he chose to terminate his study just as the new forms of neo-classical comedy, tragedy, tragicomedy and pastorale were emerging, although he did allude fleetingly to the Protestant dramas of Louis des Masures in citing one of three cantiques from the Bergerie spirituelle (Geneva, 1566) as one of his two examples of ‘new music for the stage’. Des Masures's play is only one of a number of dramatic or quasi-dramatic pieces published with music as well as spoken text during the period 1550–1600, reflecting a fashion for new music specifically composed for the theatre. In the present paper I propose to examine this considerable repertory, which has largely escaped the attention of modern scholars.

Type
Research Article
Information
Early Music History , Volume 13 , October 1994 , pp. 85 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

1 The other was a four-voice motet composed by Jean Vrancken for a Flemish miracle play copied in a manuscript dating from 1565–6 (p. 44).

2 The following articles consider the role of music in tragedy and comedy but cite no notated music: Lebègue, R., ‘Les représentations dramatiques à la cour des Valois’, Les fêtes de la Renaissance, ed. Jacquot, J. (Paris, 1956), pp. 85–90Google Scholar; Purkis, H., ‘Choeurs chantés ou parlés dans la tragédie française au XVIe siècle’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 22 (1960), pp. 294–30Google Scholar; H. Purkis, ‘Les intermèdes à la cour de France au XVIe siècle’, ibid., 20 (1958) pp. 296–309.

3 The texts and their musical models are discussed in Dobbins, F., Music in Renaissance Lyons (Oxford, 1992), pp. 60–4Google Scholar.

4 The only surviving copy (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Rés. 85, Conservatoire 30029) contains the Cantus and Tenor parts of the music. The Altus and Bassus parts must have been printed in a separate volume.

5 Like those of the Le Mans schoolmaster François Briand (1512), the Angers organist Jean Daniel (c. 1520–40) and the Savoyard poet Nicolas Martin (1555), all of whom were closely connected with the theatre. Briand's Noelz nouvaulx (1512) includes four nöels for two voices that were connected with four Advent plays in the same collection.

6 The melodic predominance of the Tenor part is underlined by monophonic collections like the anonymous Fleur de noels (Lyons 1535); cf. Babelon, J., Recueil des livres anciens (Paris, 1914, i, pp. 369–404)Google Scholar which prints ten Tenors. It is also reflected in the two-voice pieces from the Noels nouveaulx of François Briand (Le Mans, 1512; repr. Le Mans, 1904).

7 For a facsimile of the first chant and description of the others see Dobbins, , Music in Renaissance Lyons, pp. 67–71Google Scholar. The final piece, ‘Genethliac ou Chant Natal, Aiglogue quatrieme, extraict des vers de la Sibylle Cumane’, is reprinted in C. Goudimel, Oeuvres complètes, ed. P. Pidoux and others, xiii (Boston, 1974), no. 71, pp. 262–7.

8 The Confrères continued to present secular pieces (e.g. La destruction de Troye), romances (Huon de Bordeaux and Griseldis) and moralities until 1598. The Basochiens and Enfants sans Souci associations also continued their activities intermittently until 1580.

9 Cf. Dobbins, pp. 111–16.

10 Lebègue, R., La tragédie religieuse en France (Paris, 1929), p. 318Google Scholar.

11 Originally written for a speech-day performance, Bèze's Abraham was revived many times by both amateur and professional troupes in the course of the next 100 years, while other Protestant plays (e.g. those of Jean de Ia Taille, Pierre Heyns and Gérard de Vivre) and even some humanist ones (e.g. those of George Buchanan, Marc-Antoine de Muret and Georgius Macropedius) were clearly written for schools or colleges. Cf. Lebègue, , La tragédie religieuse, pp. 312–18 and 507–13Google Scholar.

12 London, British Library C.65.a.ll.

13 Its melodic outline is similar to that noted in Pidoux, P., Le Psautier Huguenot (Basle, 1962), i, p. 128, Pseaume 144bGoogle Scholar.

14 Continuing the didactic tradition of liturgical drama and mystery plays, singing seems to have endowed some performances with the character of religious services; the metrical and melodic simplicity of this music may even suggest the participation of the audience or congregation.

15 London, British Library C.47.e.17.

16 Geneva, Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire Rés. Hf. 2204.

17 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. p.Yc 1198 (2). Like the biblical dramas of Bèze, Coignac, Des Masures and Lecocq, this play was divided by pauses which may have been occupied by instrumental music.

18 Des Masures was born in Tournai around 1515 and spent much of his career in Lorraine, where he translated the Aeneid, published at different stages in Paris (1547) and Lyons (1552 and 1560). After returning in 1549 from Rome, where he enjoyed the protection of Cardinal Jean du Bellay, he converted to Protestantism; although he translated twenty psalms for Duke Jean de Lorraine (published in Lyons in 1557, with a further six added for an edition which appeared in Lyons in 1564), as well as composing an Eclogue spirituelle for the son of Duke Charles de Lorraine (published Geneva, 1566), he was eventually compelled to flee Lorraine and settled first in Metz (1562) before moving on to Alsace, Strasbourg (1567) and finally Basle (1572). On 3 May 1563 the Geneva town council granted him a privilege to publish ‘quelques comédies de David’ and three years later issued a new privilege to reprint ‘certaines tragédies de David qu'il a déjà imprimées’. Perrin's edition of 1566 and Gabriel Cartier's Genevan edition of 1583 also include both the Eclogue spirituelle and the Bergerie spirituelle, which are omitted from the editions of Nicolas Soolmans (Antwerp, 1582) and Mamert Patisson (Paris, 1587 and 1597).

19 A few cantiques (‘A Dieu au souverain Dieu’, ‘O Seigneur eternel’ and ‘Au grand Dieu veinqueur’ from David combattant, and ‘Dieu tout puissant’ from David fugitif) are isometric but extend some cadences and introduce anacrusis to vary the phrase symmetry a little.

20 Pidoux, , Le Psautier Huguenot, ii, pp. 146–8Google Scholar. See also Guillo, L., Les éditions musicales de la Renaissance Lyonnaise (Paris, 1991), pp. 320–2Google Scholar.

21 The most likely composer was Claude Goudimel, who lived in Metz from 1557 to 1565 and must have known Des Masures there, since the pair acted together as godparents to a child born on 14 October 1565 (Metz, Archives Municipales, GC 236). The case for Goudimel's authorship is discussed in Honegger, M., ‘Les chansons spirituelles de Didier Lupi’ (dissertation, University of Paris, 1970), ii, p. 149Google Scholar, and all eleven pieces are included in Goudimel, , Oeuvres complètes, xiv (New York and Basle, 1983), pp. 103–9Google Scholar.

22 Cf. Dobbins, F., ‘“Doulce mémoire”: a Study of the Parody Chanson’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 96 (1969), pp. 85–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The Eclogue spirituelle, which follows the Bergerie in François Perrin's Genevan edition of 1566, includes no music, although it is followed by graces and the monthly consecration with verse by Des Masures Set in a similar manner for four voices.

24 Cf. Brown, , Music in the French Secular Theater, p. 96Google Scholar.

25 Cf. Goudimel, , Oeuvres complètes, xiv, pp. 105–7Google Scholar.

26 The sole surviving copy in the Herzog Albert Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel (434 Theol. (7)) remained unknown to bibliographers until signalled by Guillo, Les éditions musicales, no. 78. The music is reviewed in Dobbins, , Music in Renaissance Lyons, pp. 268–9Google Scholar.

27 Pidoux, , Le Psautier Huguenot, i, no. 201dGoogle Scholar.

28 Goudimel, , Oeuvres complètes, ix (New York and Basle, 1973), Pseaume cxv, pp. 118–19Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., Pseaume Lix, pp. 50–1.

30 Ibid., Le Cantique de Simeon, pp. 151–2.

31 London, British Library 11408 aaa.38.

32 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. Yf 10bis.

33 London, British Library 11736 a.23.

34 London, British Library 11737 aaa.4.

35 Ed. K. Cameron (Geneva and Paris, 1969).

36 According to a contemporary report by Rivadeau's brother-in-law, Michel Tiraqueau, at the first performance in Poitiers on 24 July 1561 the choruses in Aman were sung by young men and women to simple tunes like those found in local Poitevin dialect in later collections like the Gente Poitevinerie; Cf. Lebègue, , La tragédie religieuse, p. 518Google Scholar.

37 Purkis, ‘Choeurs chantés ou parlés’ (see note 2).

38 Lebègue, ‘Les représentations dramatiques’ (see note 2).

39 For the original French text see Grévin, J., Théâtre complet, ed. Pinvert, L. (Paris, 1922), pp. 5–10Google Scholar.

40 Schrade, L., La représentation d'Edipo tiranno au Teatro Olimpico (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar.

41 Levy, K. J., ‘Costeley's Chromatic Chanso’, Annales Musicologiques, 3 (1955), pp. 213–63Google Scholar.

42 The prefatory verses, as well as two engraved portraits of the thirty-nine-year-old composer, are reprinted along with some of the music in Costeley, G., Musique, ed. Expert, H., Les Maîtres Musiciens de la Renaissance Française 3, 18 and 19 (Paris, 1896–1903)Google Scholar.

43 Fols. 50, 51 and 57. For a modern edition of these pieces presented in alphabetical order of textual incipit see Costeley, G., Selected Chansons, ed. Bernstein, J. A., The Sixteenth-Century Chanson 8 (New York, 1989), nos. 6, 13 and 14Google Scholar.

44 Garnier, R., Les tragedies (Paris, 1585), fols. 23–4Google Scholar; Oeuvres complètes, ed. Pinvert, L., 12 vols. (Paris, 1923), i, PP. 65–7Google Scholar; also Porcie, ed. Lebègue, R. (Paris, 1973), PP. 114–16Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., fols. 3v–4; ed. Pinvert, i, pp. 23–4; ed. Lebègue, pp. 63–5.

46 Ibid., fols. 5v-7v; ed. Pinvert, i, pp. 27–30; ed. Lebàgue, pp. 68–73.

47 Lebègue, , ed. cit., pp. 248–9Google Scholar, indicates that Garnier's first-act chorus borrows from Seneca's Hippolytus (lines 1123–43) and the second-act chorus from Horace's second epode.

48 For description and analysis of La Taille's dramas see Lebègue, , La tragédie religieuse, pp. 397–439Google Scholar. For a modern edition of two of La Taille's tragedies see de la Taille, Jean, Saul le furieux, La famine ou les Gabeonites, ed. Forsyth, E. (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar.

49 Fronton-du-Duc, , La Pucelle de Dom-Rémy aultrement d'Orléans, nouvellement departie par actes et representée par personnages (Nancy: J. Janson, 1581), Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. Ye 468; ed. de Lanson, D. (Pont-à-Mousson, 1859)Google Scholar.

50 Blondet, A., Choeurs de l'histoire tragique Saincte Cecile (Paris: P. Ballard, 1606), Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. Yf 3882Google Scholar.

51 See Lancaster, H. C., The French Tragi-Comedy (1552–1628) (New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

52 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Rés. Yf 4064.

53 Les oeuvres de Scévole de Sainte Marthe (Paris, 1579), i, fols. 144–145vGoogle Scholar.

54 Copied between 1560 and 1567 in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 838.

55 For a description of the vocal and instrumental music see Dobbins, , Music in Renaissance Lyons, pp. 112–17Google Scholar.

56 Jodelle, E., Oeuvres complètes, ed. Balmas, E., 2 vols. (Paris, 1968), ii, p. 12Google Scholar.

57 de Ronsard, P., Oeuvres complètes, ed. Laumonier, P.., xiii (Paris, 1948), pp. 218–21Google Scholar.

58 Chansons de P. de Ronsard, Ph. Desportes et autres mises en musique par N. de la Grotte, vallet de chambre & organiste ordinaire de Monsieur, frere du Roy, fol. 18. Ed. Expert, H., La fleur des musiciens de P. de Ronsard (Paris, 1923; repr. New York, 1965), pp. 62–4Google Scholar. La Grotte omits Ronsard's sixth strophe but appends a new final strophe.

59 Published in the Livre d'airs de cour miz sur le luth par Adrian le Roy (Paris, 1571)Google Scholar, fol. 16; ed. Mairy, A., de la Laurencie, L. and Thibault, G., Chansons au luth et airs de cour français du XVIe siècle (Paris, 1934), pp. 167–9Google Scholar.

60 de Baïf, J.-A., Euvres en rime, ed. Marty-Laveaux, C. (repr. Geneva, 1961), iii, pp. 183–373Google Scholar.

61 First published by H. Hendricx in Antwerp in 1577 (British Library 11737 a.38), it was reprinted there in 1580, 1595 and 1602. It was also reprinted in Paris in 1578 and in Rotterdam in 1589.

62 Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Add. A 33.

63 Grévin, , Théâtre complet, pp. 223–34Google Scholar.

64 Ronsard, , Oeuvres complètes, xiii (Paris, 1948), pp. 75–131Google Scholar.

65 London, British Library 1073 b4.

66 London, British Library Harleian 4325 – an elegant little MS of 58 vellum folios (116 X 88 mm) beautifully written and ornamented in gold, bound in embroidered boards. The title page includes a painted device of storm clouds and lightning with the word ‘Guise’ suspended to a chaplet. Cf. Yemeniz, N., ed., Oeuvres de Loys Papon (Lyons, 1857–1860)Google Scholar; Keeler, M. J., Étude sur la poésie et sur le vocabulaire de Loys Papon (Washington, 1930)Google Scholar; Barblan, M. A., Notice sur une pastourelle de Louis Papon (St Étienne, 1856)Google Scholar.

67 The foliation given here is recently added.

68 ‘To provide variety on five occasions there were eight actors of an Italian troupe, with three Pantalones served by a single Zanni, all three being in love with the same Signora; [also] a Graziano who sought to procure her with his pedant's arguments, a Rodrigo by [feats of] arms, one of the Pantalones by the nobility of his race, another by the ostentation of his means, the third by his air of pomp; finally Zanni, who managed to be served and honoured by all five as Lord and Prince, made each of them sing in turn a solo song to prove who had the finest voice, made them dance to show who was the best at it, and made them joust on plaster-cast horses to see who was the most skilful and worthy to have the lad's favour’. This unusually detailed account seems to have eluded Baschet, A., Les comédiens italiens à la cour de France (Paris, 1882)Google Scholar, which traces the successes of the Gelosi, Confidenti and Raccolti troupes in France during the last three decades of the sixteenth century.

69 The text was published in Paris in 1597 under the author's usual pseudonym: Ollenix du Mont-Sacré (British Library 11737 a.5). The lavish staging is described in the preface to this edition and is commented by Lawrenson, T. E., ‘La mise en scène dans L'Arimène’, Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance, 18 (1956), pp. 286–90Google Scholar, and by Purkis, ‘Les intermèdes’, pp. 301–4.

70 British Library C.38 a.35. Another edition was printed by C. de Montreuil in Paris in 1609 (British Library 242 f.37).

71 Later reports identified [Lambert de] Beaulieu and Jacques Salmon as the composers. See MacClintock, C. and MacClintock, L., Le Balet comique de la Royne (Rome, 1981)Google Scholar.