On the Performance of Fifteenth-Century Chansons

Author(s): Howard Mayer Brown

Source: Early Music, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Jan., 1973), pp. 2-8+10
Published by: Oxford University Press
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On

the

performance
of

fifteenth-

century
chansons
HOWARD
MAYER BROWN

The gardenof delights,Cristoforode' Predis or

the Schoolof Cristoforode' Predis

The many stages through which a composition must pass from its conception in the mind of a I5th-century composer to its performance in
a 20oth-centuryconcert hall create enormous problems for the thoughtful
musician, whose solutions are necessarily filled with compromise and
conjecture. The central problem of the performer remains the same, of
course, regardless of the music: how best to interpret and project the
composer's intentions. But how do we know what they were when we can
scarcely ever be sure that a composer supervised the preparation of a
15th-century manuscript? And even if we could know that a piece was
copied out by its author, that is still no guarantee that a 15th-century
manuscript meant the same thing to an earlier musician that a definitive
edition of a Stravinsky ballet means to us.
The modern score purports to give the performer all the information he
needs: which notes to play and how to attack and phrase them, the correct
tempo, dynamics, and so on. Even so, the inevitable tension between
composer and performer, the difficulty in finding the right balance
between a correct but lifeless reading and a wilful interpretation that
overwhelms the composition by imposing on it the player's personality, is
not easy to resolve. These same tensions were infinitely more complex in
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance when many things later thought to
be a part of the compositional process itself--text setting, instrumentation,
and even the choice of notes in the case of musicaficta, that is, the accidentals
early players were expected to add in performance-were omitted from
the source and left entirely to the performers.
In the I5th century, then, the performer had to be an active collaborator with the composer. Thus the modern player needs a different sort
of attitude, and therefore different training, to play a piece of such music
than he does to perform the concert repertoire of the I9th and 20oth
centuries. In his preparation of a piece he must function as composer,
editor, and even historian, as well as instrumentalist or singer. Indeed the
serious cultivation of early music cannot hope to reach, the level of
professionalism found in our symphony orchestras, string quartets, and
opera houses, until colleges of music recognize these differences and
institute courses to train young musicians in new, that is to say old, ways.
In the meantime, we must all do what we can to teach performerswhat to
do, if only that we may learn from their practical experience.
The difficulties may easily be illustrated by considering the best ways
to perform late 15th-century chansons. One of these elegant lyric miniatures, the setting of a five-line rondeau,Faitesde moytoutequ'ilvousplaira, by
the great Burgundian composer, Antoine Busnois (c. 1430-c. 1492),
appears in the supplement. It can be taken as a typical, if superior,
example of the genre.' Two graceful melodic lines, Superius and Tenor,
are supported by a more awkward, harmonically oriented Contratenor.
The rhythmic subtlety of the melodies-the way in which irregular
groupings by twos and threes conflict with the metre-is a characteristic
feature of this style. The shift from duple to triple time, on the other hand,
is unusual for rondeausettings.
To pretend that I have made a 'definitive' edition ofFaites de moywould
be misleading, for that is no more possible than making a 'definitive'
realization of a baroque basso continuo. The fact is that there is more than
one correct, that is, stylistically acceptable manner of performing
the chanson, especially with regard to the text which must be fitted to

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the music, the accidentals omitted by the composer, the scoring left to the
performers, and the kind and quantity of melodic ornaments improvised
by the singers and players. Therefore the modern performer must take a
more critical attitude toward this edition than, say, toward a Brahms or
Schubert song published in a Gesamtausgabe.He must try to understand
what the editor has done and why. In a sense, the original manuscript
version is the ideal one, for it presents the music in a neutral form, allowing the player full freedom. And yet responsible modern editors rightly
feel that they must offer one possible performing version, even while
realizing that in so doing they may obscure other equally valid ones.
Faites de moy appears here after one Florentine manuscript. Therefore,
the problem of deciding which notes are the correct ones hardly arises,
although players should be aware that editors can go astray by adopting
the least good of several conflicting versions. The few wrong notes in the
Florentine Faites de moy are easily corrected, even without concordances to
bolster the decision. And in indicating the change of time in bars 35-38,
I have obeyed the spirit rather than the letter of the original by staggering
the time signatures, in order to indicate the relationship between the new
tempo and the old. It is a proportional one, with three minims in triple
time being equal to two minims in duple (proportiosesquialtera), as the overlapping rests clearly prove. In short I have tried to preserve all of the
essential features of the original manuscript in indicating which notes to
sound, and when.2
In adding text to the music, on the other hand, I have allowed myself
rather more freedom to interpret the original document. For example, I
have not indicated clearly exactly where the words appear in the manuscript. But by putting in italics all of the text that does not appear in the
original, I do at least show what I have added. From this it should be
apparent that I believe 15th-century chansonniers do not supply detailed
information about texting, a position that some scholars would attack.
I assume that I5th-century performers were free to place syllables under
whichever notes they thought appropriate, and in so doing they followed
some fairly conventional procedure which was flexible enough to produce
more than one equally valid result. Baldly stated, the procedure I have
adopted, devised partly by extrapolating backwards from the rules given
by Stoquerus and Zarlino, and partly by reasoning about the character
of the melodic lines, is based on the belief that each phrase normally began
with syllabic, or nearly syllabic, declamation, and ended with a long
melisma on the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable, whichever was
the more stressed.3 This practice can be modified in several ways, most
notably in Faites de moy by the decision to interrupt the melisma and to
repeat some part of the poetic line wherever the melody cadences momentarily, a technique that throws into relief the fact that many of the phrase
endings function musically as codettas. Moreover I have followed the
rule that a new syllable cannot begin in the middle of a ligature, and for
that reason I have indicated all ligatures in the modern edition by placing
square brackets over the notes involved.
If there is as yet no consensus among scholars about the way text ought
to be added to 15th-century vocal music, there is general agreement about
the rules for adding accidentals.4 They are few and simple. Chief among
them are the prohibition against tritones and the admonition to raise
leading notes at cadences; almost all the others can be derived from those.

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Disagreement about musica ficta comes when the rules are applied to real
music. There is ample evidence to suggest that this disagreement was as
prevalent in the Renaissance as in the 20th century, and that in fact
alternative versions were current then and were apparently found to be
equally valid. Whatever the merits of my solution, then, the 2oth-century
performer, like his predecessors, should take advantage of his freedom to
choose others; to accept meekly what is given him, even though it goes
against his artistic convictions, violates the performing conventions of the
Renaissance.
Even if the performer accepts enthusiastically my version of Faites de
instruments
moy, however, he must still make two crucial decisions-what
he even faces
and voices to use and whether or not to ornament-before
problems of tempo, dynamics, tone quality, articulations, and so on, which
are in later music the chief areas where the performer is given some degree
of latitude. Fifteenth-century composers seem not to have written with
specific sonorities in mind, at least not so far as secular music is concerned.
Apparently, compositions were intended to be adapted to differing
acoustical situations and to the available combinations of voices and
instruments. Fifteenth-century works of art, archival records, surviving
manuscripts, and literary references, make clear, however, that a chanson
like Faites de moy might have been performed in any of at least nine
different ways: (i) with the Superius sung and the other two voices
played on instruments, (2) with the Superius sung or played on a melody
instrument and the lower two voices played on a chordal instrument, lute,
keyboard, or harp, (3) with the Tenor sung and the other two voices
played on instruments, (4) with the Superius and Tenor sung and the
Contratenor played on a melody instrument, (5) with all three voices
played on soft instruments, (6) with all three voices played ori loud instruments, (7) arranged for a solo chordal instrument, (8) with all three
voices sung, or (9) with the Superius and Tenor played or sung and the
Contratenor omitted. In listing these nine possible scorings, I do not
mean to be exhaustive or prescriptive, but merely wish to point out that
modern performers need to be encouraged to take advantage of the
freedom their predecessors enjoyed, but that they must do so taking into
account as much knowledge of the limits of that freedom as we possess at
present.5
Our perception of the style of this music reinforces our historical
knowledge to suggest that chansons like Faites de moy should be scored for
voices and instruments which contrast in timbre, in order to bring out
the individuality of each line and to make clear that each has a separate
function in the texture. Full consorts of like instruments-groups
of
recorders or viols, for example-produce
a homogeneous sound that does
not fit the late 15th-century chanson; they are best for music written after
the stylistic change of about 1500. Indeed, the historical evidence so far
chansons were often performed in a
gathered shows that late
I5th-century
way that emphasized the top voice as the principal melody; that is, the
Superius was either sung or played on a melody instrument with some
sustaining power, recorder, flute, portative organ, or bowed string, while
the lower voices were plucked or struck by lute, harp, dulcimer, psaltery,
or some other similar instruments.
Curiously, there is relatively little evidence that bowed stringed instruments took part in the performance of late I5th-century chansons. That
5

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they are rare in the relevant pictures of the time, for example, may at
least partly be explained by the fact that common practice was changing;
it was a period of transition. Although the medieval fiddle and rebec lasted
well into the I6th century, they were quickly losing social prestige and
more and more came to be associated exclusively with beggars and street
musicians. In their place the suaver, sweeter viols took over the leading
role in chamber music. But precisely when the viola da gamba began its
rise, and the extent to which it was played in the late 15th century remains
a mystery awaiting scholarly investigation. And whether fiddle or viol is
more appropriate for chansons by Busnois and his contemporaries,no one
can yet say for certain. Both are among the instruments with a compass
that extends to the lowest notes of Faites de moy. Until someone settles
the question of their use in this repertoire, then, we should continue to
experiment with both.
One special combination often appears in pictures, a trio consisting of
harp or lute, flute or recorder, and voice. Indeed, it is one of the few
conventional groupings that outlives the stylistic change of about 1500
and appears in pictures up to mid-century. It is a scoring, however, that
poses certain problems if applied to Faites de moyand chansons like it. If
the voice sings the top line, as seems self evident, then the flute or recorder
most likely plays the Tenor. But both flute and recorder were transposing
instruments then, sounding an octave higher than written. Whereas inner
voices are often very effective at 4-foot pitch, even though they sound
above the written top voice, performersmust take care that written bass
notes always stay below the others, lest incorrect chord positions and
other barbarismsresult. In Faites de moy,and in many other chansons of
the period, the Tenor crosses below the Contratenor on occasion, and so
it must sound at written pitch. There are a number of ways out of this
difficulty. The composition can be transposedto a key high enough for the
wind instrument to sound at 8-foot pitch, for example, or the Tenor can
be sung by a baritone and the top voice played on flute or recorder.
Perhaps the most satisfactory disposition of voices and instruments,
though, allows the Superius to be sung and the Tenor played at 4-foot
pitch on a wind, while lute or harp play both lowest lines together. In that
way the harmony is preserved intact. It is one of the few instances of
doubling (wind instrument plus plucked string on the Tenor) that seems
appropriate in this repertoire, for generally doubling thickens the
sound and destroys the delicacy of the texture.
One of the instruments in this conventional trio, the harp, has been
unjustly neglected in the revival of early music. It was a standard chordal
instrument then, along with the chamber organ and the various harpsichord types, and it was much more often used than the lute before 1500
to play all the parts of polyphonic compositions. Modern keyboard and
harp players ought to follow the example of their I 5th-century predecessors
and expand their repertoire by arranging chansons like Faites de moyfor
their instruments, simply by adapting the three melodic lines of the
chanson to two staves and ornamenting the Superius (ex. I). Literally
hundreds of models can be found in the Buxheim Organ Book and other
German manuscripts of the time, and, for somewhat earlier chansons, in
the Faenza Codex.6 Lutenists should also explore this possibility, for
chansons by Busnois and his contemporarieswere intabulated for solo lute
early in the i6th century, even though the playing technique of the

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instrument was in a state of transition during the late I5th century, when
players changed from using a plectrum for single melodic lines to using
their fingers for polyphonic music. The timid lutenist, afraid of even such
a slight anachronism, can always console himself by ornamenting the
Superius of a chanson, while a harp plays both bottom lines, an arrangement apparently quite common in Busnois's day.
Since chansons seem to us delicate and lyrical examples of chamber
music, we are apt to score them exclusively for soft instruments when we
play them without words. But they were sometimes transformed into
raucous outdoor music for the standard loud wind trio of the time, two
shawms and a narrow-bore trombone or sackbut. In this scoring, one of
the few that obscures the treble dominated texture of the music, descant
and tenor shawms traditionally played the structural voices, Superius and
Tenor, and the sackbut was given the Contratenor line.
Singing all three voices unaccompanied also masks the supremacy of the
top line, but nevertheless some evidence suggests that these chansons were
at least occasionally performed a cappella.For that reason I have added
the words to the Tenor and the Contratenor of Faitesde.moy,even though
the original manuscript included them only under the Superius. Typically,
they fit the Tenor quite well, but the Contratenor much less so. For that
reason, most modern editors fail to add the words to the lowest voice and
maintain that it is instrumental in conception; but since it was sometimes
sung, and the text can somewhat unhappily be forced onto it, I have made
the attempt, if only as an experiment.
Finally, the performer needs to decide if he will play the notes exactly
as they are preserved in the manuscript, or if he will decorate them with
more or less elaborate divisions.7 The variant readings found in multiple

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versions of the same composition show that composers, or at least scribes,

had a much less rigid concept of one sacrosanct version, immutable in all

of its details, than we do. They regularly filled in thirds by steps, for
example, and made minor changes in the rhythm apparently following
their whims rather than any careful artistic policy. Moreover the only
7

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manuscripts from the 15th century that are unambiguously and exclusively
instrumental are anthologies of keyboard music, much of it arrangements
of chansons and other vocal music in highly ornamented versions. By the
early 16th century instrumentalists seem to have been expected to
improvise ornaments as a regular part of their playing technique. It seems
likely, then, that instrumentalists of the previous century, and possibly
singers as well, were expected to do likewise.
How much can the modern performer decorate chansons, and where ?
Naturally, hard and fast rules can never be formulated, since ornamentation depends so much on personal taste and ability. Most or all of the
cadences can certainly be varied by conventional formulas (as in ex. 2).

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to decorate the top voice more elaborately, along the lines of ex. 3,

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realizing full well that he runs the risk of overstepping the bounds of good
taste. The intabulations in the Buxheim Organ Book can serve him as
models for such experiments, even though they were intended exclusively
for keyboard instruments, for the 15th-century musician was not as
sensitive to stylistic differences among various instruments as we are.
In sum, Busnois left us only the essential elements of Faites de moy in
written form. The I5th-century manuscript which includes it should thus
be considered more like an intermediate draft of a I9th- or 20oth-century
composition than like its final published version. To bring Faites de moy to
life as actual music, the modern performer must collaborate with the
I5th-century composer in deciding how the text should be fitted to the
music, which accidentals need to be added, who is to sing or play it, and
how extensively to ornament, even before he can face the questions he is
more used to asking: how fast to play, how loud, how slurred or detached,
and so on. Historians of music can help him with some of these problems,
but he can also help the historian by pointing out what is practical and
effective. Even together we may never be able to reconstruct precisely how
the music sounded in the past; we can at least give it meaning for the
present
1

Petrucci.CantiB numerocinquanta.Venice,
Modern editions of late 15th-century
chansons include the following: E. Droz
r502 (Chicago and London, I967).
4 On musicaficta see the various essays
and G. Thibault, eds., Ponteset musiciensdu
XVe sidcle(Paris, i924); E. Droz,
by Edward E. Lowinsky, and especially
his introduction to H. Colin Slim, ed.,
Y. Rokseth, and G. Thibault, eds.,
Musica nova (Chicago and London, 1964).
XVe
du
Trois chansonniers
sidcle
franfais
5 My views on the instrumentation of
(Paris, 1927); K. Jeppesen, ed., Der
chansons are developed at greater length
Chansonnier(Copenhagen,
Kopenhagener
in 'Instruments and Voices in the
1927); H. Hewitt, ed., HarmoniceMusices
Fifteenth-Century Chanson', Current
OdhecatonA (Cambridge, Mass., I942);
H. M. Brown, ed., TheatricalChansonsof
Thoughtsin Musicology(University of
Texas Press, to be published).
the Fifteenthand Early SixteenthCenturies
6 The Buxheim Organ Book has been
(Cambridge, Mass., 1963); M. Picker,
published in a modern edition by B. A.
ed., The ChansonAlbumsof Margueriteof
Wallner in Das Erbe deutscherMusik.
Austria (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1965);
vols. 37-39 (Cassel,
Reichsdenkmale,
and the forthcoming editions of the
Mellon Chansonnier in the Yale
1958-59). The smaller German keyboard
manuscripts are published in Willi Apel,
University Library by Leeman Perkins,
ed., KeyboardMusic of theFourteenthand
and my Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale
FifteenthCenturies(American Institute of
Centrale, MS Magl. XIX, 59 (B. R. 229)
SThe chanson appears in Florence,
Musicology, 1963). A facsimile of the
Faenza Codex, appears as An Early
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Magl.
Italian Sourceof Keyboard
Fifteenth-Century
XIX, 59 (B. R. 229), fol. 238v, and also
Music (American Institute of Musicology,
in manuscripts in Paris, Seville, and
Verona. The wrong notes in the
I96I). And some of its contents have been
transcribed in Dragan Plamenac,
Florentine manuscript are:t (I) Tenor,
'Keyboard Music of the 14th Century in
bar 18, reads D instead of C; (2)
Codex Faenza I 17', Journal of the
Superius, bar 28, reads F instead of E;
American
instead
A
reads
bar
MusicologicalSociety4 (1951):
32,
(3) Contratenor,
of G; and (4) Contratenor, bar 57, reads
179-20 , and also his 'New Light on
Codex Faenza 117', Report,International
F instead of E. The time change in bars
Societyfor Musical Research,Fifth Congress,
35-38 is indicated in the original by
Utrecht,3-7 July 1952 (Amsterdam, i953),
blackened notes (coloration).
3 My views on text underlay are much
pp. 310-26.
7 My views on ornamentation in
indebted to Edward E. Lowinsky; see
15th-century chansons are developed at
especially his 'A Treatise on Text
greater length in 'Improvised
Underlay by a German Disciple of
Ornamentation in the Fifteenth-Century
Francisco de Salinas', FestschriftHeinrich
Besseler(Leipzig, 1961), and his
Chanson', Memoriee contributi. . . offertia
FedericoGhisi (Bologna, 1972)introduction to H. Hewitt, ed., Ottaviano

10

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