Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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542 SONG
in structure and character to chansons of modern
date. In the old and new alike we find a
strongly marked rhythm, easy intervals, and a
paucity of notes, repetition of one short melodic
phrase, the major mode, the favourite 6-8 time,
and an extreme simplicity of general plan.^
Though hundreds of years have passed since
'
Robin et Marion ' was written, the song 'Robin
m'aime ' (ex. 1 1) is still sung in Henuegau.^
In two volumes of old French and Latin
poems, the author Guillaume de Machault is
styled poet and musician. The forms of the
poems are very varied, and among them are a
great number oilais, virelais, ballades, rondeaux,
and rondelets, with description of the music to
which they are set.' Machault seems to have
been most renowned for his graceful and rhythmical
balleites, which are written, as a rule, im
triple or compound time. It should be noted
that in the songs of this early period the melody
is never protracted and drawn out to the detriment
of the words, but closely follows the ^uiek
succession of syllables without visible eHbrt.
And these old melodies often have the Iambic
rhythm, for instance*
12. Adam db la Hale.
lln'eBt 8i bon - ne Ti an -de que ina-tons.
Contemporary with, or a little junior to
Machault, was Jehannot Lescurel, who wrote
romances which are still extant in MS. One
of these, A vous douce debonnaire, ' ' which has
been translated into modem notation by Fftis,^
exhibits a more developed melody and a, more
modern tendency than other productions of the
same date.
If it be true that during the 14th and 15th
centuries, the Church exercised an exclusive
dominion over music, she was nevertheless a
friend to secular songs. By taking popular
tunes for the themes of their masses and motets,
such as 'L'omme arm^,' 'Taut je me deduis,'
'
Se la face ay pale ' (used by Dufay) ; or
' Baisez-moi ' (by Roselli), Malheur me ' bat ' (by
Josquin des Pres), etc.,^ the musicians of the
Church preserved many a melody which would
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otherwise have perished. L'omme arm^ ' is
undoubtedly the most famous song of the
Middle Ages, and it owes its notoriety not so
much to its beauty as to the fact that contrapuntal
composers, from Dufay, at the end of
the 14th century, to Palestrina, used it more
than any other folk-song. (See L'Homme
ARMfe, vol. ii. p. 687.) From want of such
adoption by the Church, some of the airs have
been lost to which the curious old Noels, printed
1 Tieraot, EUtoire, p. 853.
2 This example ia taken from M. Lnesy and E. David's JJistoire
de la Notation Mufdcale, p. 105.
3 The volumes were found in 174? by Count de Caylus in a royal
library in France. Buraey. Hist, of Mu% ii. 303.
* Ambros. Oes. der MugVc, ii. 295.
5 This song is to be found in the Itevue ilujiicdle, vol. xii. No. 34.
e Ambroa, Qes. der Musik. iii, 15 et aeq.
in black letter at the end of the 15th century,
were sung, though the names of the airs (such
as 'Fauloe trahison,' etc.) remain as superscriptions.
(See Noel.)'
In that great age of serious polyphonic music
a Iiigh place was held by the French school, or,
to speak more correctly, by the Gallo-Belgian
school, for during the 14th and 15th centuries
no distinction, as regards music, can be drawn
between northern France and Flanders.
The direct use made of secular music for
ecclesiastical purposes is remarkably illustrated
by the works of Clement Marot. He was a
translator of a portion of the Psalms ; and the
first thirty of them, which he dedicated to his
king, Fran5ois I., were set or parodied ' ' to the
favourite dance-airs of the Court. ^ Popularity
was thus at once secured for the Psalms, which
meiubera of the Court could sing to their
favourite courantes, sarabandes, and iourries.
After Marot's death Beza continued "his work at
Calvin's instance.' Much doubt existed for a
long while as to whom belonged the credit of
having set the Psalms to music. Some ascribed
it wholly to Marot, others to Goudimel ; but
M. Douen has now made it clear that these
men, together with Jambe de Fer, Franc,
Claudin, and others, adapted the Psalms to old
secular songs.'" In the 'Psautier Flamand
Primitif (1540) all the psalms are for one
voice, and with only two exceptions they can
all be traced back to their sources in popular
French and Flemish songs. ^^ (See Psalter.)
While secular music was thps made to
minister to the Church, it had a separate
though less conspicuous sphere of its own.
Tiis is attested by the vaux-de-vire (or
drinking- songs), >^ mix-de-mUe (better known
by their modem name of vaudevilles) and airsde-cour,
collected and published in the 16th
t A list of collections of Noels is given by Tifrsot, nixt. , p. 242.
9 Wekerlin says in hia ' lilchos du Temps passii,' iii. 13B, that
when any dance-air became popular, rhymers immediai^ly
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parodied ' it, i.e. put words to it, so that it could be sung. The
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term parody ' thtia had no sense of burlesque, but it simply meant
adaptation. The Ballards issued a quantity of these songs.
'L'Abeille,' a well-known example, is really a minuet.
9 Calvin, who deteated the arts, recommended music, nevertheless,
from the purely utilitai-ian point of view, 'la parole chant^ qui
porte beaucoup plus fort.'
1" See Climent Marot et le Psatutier ffuguenot, I. 606. One of the
most noted is the magniHeent Huguenot Battle Hymn, Que ' Dieuse
montre seulement ' (Psalm 68), SDnietimes called La ' Marseillaise
Huguenote.' Itis asecular tune of Alsatian origin, and It appeared
first in the first edition of the Straaburg Psalter.
' ' For caniiqueji, moreover, as well aa masses and psalma, secular
aits were openly utilised. And according to I^onen (pp. 688 and
703) the Roman Catholics have never ceased to adapt secular airs
to ecclesiastical uses from the 16th century down to the present
time. He supports this statement by reference to 'La pieuse
alouette avec son tire-lire ; Chansons Spirituellea. le plupart sur les
airs moudaiiis, par Ant. de la Cauchie, 3615'; Imitations de '
Jtjsus-
Christ en Cantiquesaur dea airs d'Op^raa et de Vaudevilles, par Abbd
Pelegrin, 1727' (Paris) ; aaid
'
Concerts Sjiirituela,' a collection
published at Avignon in 1835, of masses, hymns, requiems, prayers,
etc., on operatic melodies by Oluck, Piccinni, Mozart, Cimarosa,
Bossiui, Wdhul, and others.
IB Baaaelin and Jean le Houx, who lived in the little valleys Ivaux)
around Vire in Normandy, in the second half of the 25th century,
wrote many favourite drinking-songs, and hence drinking-songs
came to be called vaux-de^vire. Some writers have confused thie
teim with the voix-de-vtUe, whitSi applied to chansons sung in the
Btreeta, and later to any songs with gay airs and light words. Jehan
Chardavoine'a famous collection of monodic eonga of the Iflth
centuiT is described as containing vaux-devt'lle and voix-de-vUle
chansons de ville, pieces llttiiraires avec leur musique originale'
' telle que Mlgnonne. allons voir si la roae,' by Ronsard, etc. See
Tiersot, nlt>toire, pp. 228 and 433 for other similar collections