Table Of Content“SINGING TO ANOTHER TUNE”:
CONTRAFACTURE AND ATTRIBUTION IN TROUBADOUR SONG
DISSERTATION
Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the
Graduate School of The Ohio State University
By
Billee A. Bonse, M.A.
* * * * *
The Ohio State University
2003
Dissertation Committee:
Approved by
Professor Charles M. Atkinson, Adviser
Professor Graeme Boone
Adviser
Professor Margaret Switten School of Music
Professor Karen Winstead
Copyright by
Billee A. Bonse
2003
ABSTRACT
This study borrows the quotation in its title, “Singing to another tune,” from Las
Leys d’amors (The Laws of Love), a poetic treatise compiled by Guilhem Molinier in the
first half of the fourteenth century. Guilhem’s phrase pertains to a compositional
technique known to modern scholars as contrafacture, in which the troubadour fashions
new lyrics after the poetic structure of a preexistent song, thereby allowing his work to be
sung to that earlier melody. The technique of contrafacture is documented not only by
Guilhem and other contemporaneous theorists, but also by the troubadours themselves,
who on a number of occasions acknowledge composing a poem “el so de,” or “to the tune
of” another composer. Both theory and practice demonstrate that structural imitation
came to be most closely associated with several specific genres—including the sirventes
(moralizing piece), tenso (debate song), coblas (song of few strophes), and planh
(lament)—whose poetic structures were commonly modeled after those of the canso, the
dominant genre of troubadour composition.
Despite abundant structural indications of contrafacture within the troubadour
repertoire, melodic traces of the practice are surprisingly scant. Confirmation of melodic
borrowing depends upon the preservation of a model and its contrafactum with their
concordant musical readings, yet the small proportion of surviving troubadour melodies
ii
(with only one in ten lyric texts transmitted with its tune) poses a significant impediment
to melodic corroboration. Only three sirventes have been preserved with melodies that
duplicate those of preexistent cansos. In the remaining instances in which a sirventes,
tenso, or other imitative type is preserved with a melodic unicum, scholars of troubadour
song have tended to maintain that, absent melodic corroboration, the tune must be
presumed original rather than borrowed. In view of the sparseness of the musical record,
however, one should give consideration to an alternate interpretation, namely that the
tune preserved exclusively with a given troubadour’s sirventes and thereafter transmitted
as his invention may actually have been borrowed from a preexistent canso whose
melody is no longer extant in its original setting.
Isolating viable structural models for such suspected contrafacta allows the
possibility of reascribing potentially borrowed melodies to their original composers. The
study of contrafacture can thus lead us to question the received attributions of a number
of tunes, thereby posing a challenge to the readily made assumption that the manuscript
rubrics consistently pertain to both text and melody.
By examining several suspected cases of contrafacture within a web of relevant
indices—e.g., generic norms, intertextual correlations, socio-historic context, rhetorical
motivation, transmission, and melodic style—we shall gain greater insight into a
compositional technique that indelibly marked the art of the troubadours.
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In fondest memory
Hans-Erich Keller
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank first and foremost my adviser, Charles M. Atkinson for his keen
insights, meticulous readings, and continual enthusiasm throughout the many stages of
this study. I also extend my gratitude to Professors Graeme Boone and Karen Winstead
for providing me with their constructive comments regarding both the style and content
of my document. My most sincere thanks are due to Margaret L. Switten for her gracious
willingness to participate as a member of my dissertation committee; her expertise has
proven invaluable to me in the refinement of both my methodology and argumentation.
I would also like to thank the entire faculty and staff of the Department of
Musicology for providing me with a supportive environment throughout my graduate
career at The Ohio State University.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial
support of several parties: The Société Générale, whose year-long fellowship allowed me
to pursue valuable research in Paris; Jack and Zoe Johnstone, whose generous award has
helped me to cover numerous travel and research expenses during the past year; and
finally, the Graduate School of The Ohio State University, whose Presidential Fellowship
has allowed me to dedicate the past year to the writing of my dissertation.
Finally, I offer my most heartfelt appreciation to my family and friends for their
untiring encouragement throughout this process.
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VITA
1 March 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Born – Sioux Falls, South Dakota
1993 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B.A. French and Music History,
University of Wisconsin – Madison
1994 – 2002 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Graduate Teaching and Research Associate,
The Ohio State University
1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M.A. Musicology,
The Ohio State University
FIELDS OF STUDY
Major Field: Music
Certificate: Medieval and Renaissance Studies
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii
Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Vita . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v i
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
List of Sigla for Cited Troubadour Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
List of Sigla for Cited Trouvère Manuscripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiii
A Note on Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xiv
Chapters:
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Towards an understanding of genre and contrafacture: The treatises
of troubadour lyric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3. Imitation upon imitation: ‘To the tune of the lament on the Young King
of England’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
4. Setting a sirventes to the tune of a canso: Peire Cardenal’s debt to
Blacasset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
5. Bertran de Born and the trouvères: A melodic exchange with Conon
de Béthune and Jehan Erart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
6. ‘El so de n’Alamanda’: Another melody by a woman troubadour? . . . . . . . . . .166
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7. Departing from convention with a borrowed tune: Guiraut Riquier’s
Qui.m disses and a canso by a Guiraudo lo Ros. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
8. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
Appendices:
A. Glossary of frequently cited terms in Old Occitan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256
B. Thirteenth-century pieces designated as vers by their authors and their
categorization in István Frank’s Répertoire métrique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
C. The evolution in the meaning of the term vers (circa 1100 – 1220) . . . . . . . . . .260
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .267
viii
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1.1 The three pairs of melodically corroborated borrowings
found within the troubadour repertoire, listed by model
and contrafactum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 The Monk of Montaudon’s Mot m’enveya (PC 305.10), set
“el so de la rassa” (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds français
22543, fol. 40r, detail) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8
1.3 Melodically corroborated borrowings of troubadour tunes
appearing in outside repertoires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.1 The sixteen genres as ordered in De doctrina de compondre
dictats and their incidence in the troubadour repertoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..35
2.2 Revision from Leys A to Leys C in the internal ordering of the
principal genres, reflecting their ultimate worth in the Jeux floraux . . . . . . . 63
2.3 The principal genres as ordered in Leys A, and their incidence
in the troubadour repertoire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.1 Peire Cardenal’s Aissi com hom plainh son fill o son paire
(PC 335.2), said to be “en lo soo deu plant deu Rey juen
dangleterre” (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, fonds français
856, fol. 281v, detail) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
3.2 Illustration of the shared strophic structure of Bertran de Born’s
Mon chan fenis ab dol et ab maltraire (PC 80.26) and Peire
Cardenal’s Aissi com hom plainh son fill o son paire (PC 335.2) . . . . . . . . 83
4.1 Peire Cardenal, Un sirventes novel vueill comensar (PC 335.67) . . . . . . . .105
4.2 Blacasset, Si.m fai amors ab fezel cor amar (PC 96.11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .110
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