Songs to the Virgin in the 13th Century
Songs to the Virgin in the 13th Century
Through the impetus given
in the first half of the 12th century by the great abbot St Bernard of
Clairvaux, devotion to the Virgin Mary pervaded the whole of the 13th
century. It also influenced literature and music, both of which found a
model of expression in Gautier de Coinci’s Miracles de
Nostre-Dame, from which most of the pieces on this recording
are taken (10 of the 15 pieces).
Gautier came from Coinci-l’Abbaye, between Soissons and
Château-Thierry, near Fère-en-Tardenois. He became a monk at St Médard
in Soissons and later spent almost twenty years as prior of the
monastery of Vic-sur-Aisne: many of his works bear the title ‘Li prior
de Vi’, thus indicating that they were written between 1214 and 1233.
His major work, which inspired poets such as Rutebeuf, before being
imitated by Alphonse le Sage, is an impressive verse narrative,
recounting the numerous legends associated with the Virgin, in which we
often find the Virgin interceding to save the innocent from peril or
the guilty from punishment when they have called upon her in extremis.
The first piece in the collection, the Miracle de Théophile,
inspired Rutebeuf’s masterpiece of the same name, one of the earliest
miracle plays in French.
But Gautier was as musical as he was well-read. Familiar with the
repertoire of the trouvères, he found himself, in that part of the
Ile-de-France between Champagne and Picardy, in the very heart of the
trouvère country, when they were at their peak. He knew that is was
customary in lyric poetry, since the Roman de la Rose
(over 21,000 lines!) and Guillaume de Dole, written
in the 1200s, to illustrate the narrative (which, it must be
remembered, was read out loud) with refrains
(segments of melody, usually two or three phrases, with words), which
stimulated the listeners’ attention; it was not long before they formed
a coherent cycle around Aëlis or some other mystical beauty. Gautier
decided to do the same for his Miracles, and even
enlarged the process by quoting not only a refrain but whole pieces,
transforming the words whilst keeping the music, the rhythm and
sometimes the rhymes and assonances. these new words, all dedicated to
the Virgin, express ardent devotion: he transformed the human love sung
by his models into sublimated love for the Virgin Mary, and even the
classic courtly encounter between a knight and a shepherdess, which
Adam de la Halle was to use for his Jeu de Robin et Marion,
was transposed to a mystical encounter between a Christian and Our
Lady.
Gautier did not confine himself to the repertoire of the trouvères: he
went on to use other works he knew: the Latin versus
which had been brought into favour at St Martial in Limoges, and the
repertoire of conductus or organum duplum
for which, at the same time, the Notre Dame School, led by Pérotin le
Grand, was winning renown. He was also familiar with the vast
repertoire of lais*, which was an extension of the still flourishing
chanson de geste. Thus, through his contrafacta,
Gautier de Coinci’s œuvre provides a veritable anthology of almost the
whole of the lyric repertoire of his time. Whence its exceptional
interest - which has certainly not escaped those who made this
recording.
The old French of the texts sometimes escapes us. As is most commonly
the case nowadays, the performers have not attempted to update them in
order to make them understandable; with great intelligence, they have
harmonised, instrumented and developed the originals, most of which
were monodic and strophic. The result is both appealing and evocative.
Jacques Chailley
(transl.: Mary Pardoe)
* "An extended song
form,
cultivated particularly in the 13th and 14th centuries", David Fallows
Oberschwäbisch
Glasmalerei,
Klosterkirche Heiligkreuztal
um 1300