Second livre: Questions and Responses
Freedman Responses to Chater questions.
May 28 2010
II,1 Je me veulx tant.
Souffrir m’est doulz et mon mal j’estime heur. For the scansion, the final e of “estime” should be elided with “heur” (h is not aspirated). Do you like my solution?
RF: I assume you mean in mm 22-23 and 28-9, you are delaying both me and heur to the last note. I agree that this seems a more regular 4+6 syllable line.
II,2 Vous me changez
Last word. I made “serf-vice” into one word. In the print there is a small gap after the “f”, so I made it two words. But elsewhere the printer often leaves a small gap and no hyphen between 2 syllables belonging to the same word. I think it is obviously to be considered one word.
RF: Yes, seems reasonable, although I wonder if there is some kind of word play with earlier line on “service” (no f in this case). That would rule against the hyphen.
II,5 Un fin Mary, bar 27ff.
Here “à” is used for third person singular present tense of “avoir”. If we automatically put an accent on “à” as preposition, should we not leave it off if it means “has”? I have changed it to “a”.
RF: We have said we’d add accents to avoid ambiguity, and also to expand abbreviations, both without further comment. I agree that it would be “a” (no accent). Just put the change in the report, I think.
II,5 Un fin Mary
“Ha ha mon mary”, bars 39ff and 49ff: On reflection, I don’t think this qualifies as patter or nonsense, so I have punctuated it as a normal repetition, supplying commas between each “Ha”: “Ha, Ha mon mary…” (Without repeats, “Ha mon mary”)
RF: I have come to the conclusion that we must treat patter in the same way we do all other repetition. Otherwise we will be forced to decide what is patter and what is not. I think the only situation in one would not add comma for repetition might be when the repetition was _internal_ to the verse structure (that is, two ‘Ha’s” as part of a ten-syllable line. Here, at any rate, is what we say in the Editorial Guidelines about repetitions:
- Punctuation for text repetitions (either indicated in the source or based on editorial suggestions) follows this rule: the first statement of a line or part of a line is separated from the repetition by a comma. Subsequent repetitions are also separated from each other by a comma. There is no additional comma between the repetition and the continuation of the line to which it belongs. The original punctuation (whether comma, colon, or period) appears at the end of the text of that line.
II,10 Or my doint.
The spelling of the title in the table has “doinbt” while the S, Ct and T have “doint”.
For the opening line, the B begins: “Or dieu mi Donne”, probably a misprint. I have replaced it and put a footnote.
Bar 9. I hesitate between “m’envoys and “m’en voys”. (I am not sure what it means: “I part”? “I am sent away?”). On the Ricercar site it is “m’en voys” but I have my doubts. In the books, B and T have a system breaks between “en” and “voys”, S and CT spell as one word (no gap between syllables). I have revised it as “m’envoys”. Do we know what was 16th-century usage?
RF: Our tables follow Du Chemin’s tables. Our editions follow his texts. This is a riddle, I know, but not sure how we can fix it, since the former are part of our electronic system. Yes, emend the Bassus text, but I would say in this case put it in [ ] and make a note. We say we fix orthography silently, but not whole words. I would think that the presence of the abbreviation suggests one word, as does the general musical gesture, which ties the whole set together acoustically anyway. Note: Huguet explains ‘envoyer’ as a verb used to send a request for assistance. That’s the sense of this usage, since the speaker applies to all loyal ones, from his condition of sadness.
II,11 Ho le meschant
“Nonsense” syllables issues :
Opening repetitions of “meschant” and “villain”: “meschant meschant” and “villain villain”: no comma added.
I am punctuating the text repetitions within the line “Et ne vault plus en bon latin” as “Et ne vault plus en bon latin, Et ne vault plus en bon latin, en bon en bon latin” — note commas after “latin” but no comma between the 2 appearances of “en bon”. Source has no punctuation separating repeats of line or bits of text within line.
RF: This is really one of those places where we smack our heads against our own rules. The stuttering effect of the repetitions I think is _meant_ to exaggerate the difference between this manner of speach and ‘good latin’. But we have said in our ‘rules’ that we add commas for all internal repetitions, even when Du Chemin does not. It is quite variable in the sources, and David Fiala tells me that his colleagues in the BVH project simply shrugged at the question of commas, since they are highly arbitrary in any case. Where meaning breaks down, as it does here, I think we can say that our system breaks down, too!
II,12 Au feu
T, opening line: I have tried to improve the text underlay.
RF: It is an odd line. How good a composer was Martin?!
II,13 Cupido.
Title in index has “appetiz” but all 4 voices in music have “appetitz”
RF: As above, we are stuck.
II,15 Dieu doinbt.
Contents table gives spelling “Dieu doinbt le bonjour” with “b” in “doinbt” and “bonjour” looking like one word. In the voice parts, it is “doint” in all 4, and in all 4 there is a clear space between “bon” and “jour”. However, this does not necessarily mean we should interpret it as 2 words. So in the transcription I have added a hyphen: “bon-jour” to harmonise with the contents table.
RF: OK.
II,16 Allons.
Bar 1, 2nd time text, first word: = “Cependant” or “Ce pendant”? In the source it looks like “Ce pendant” in all 4 voices (gap after “Ce”, no gap in “pendant”), so I have left it as two words.
CT, bars 6-8: underlay?? (no repeat mark for “plaisanment”).
RF: What does David F say? Yes, I see only one repeat marks for plaisanment, so you can add the repetition in [ roman ].
II,17 Ce friant oeil
Title is “Ce friant œil” in contents table but “oeil” (oe not contracted) in parts.
Bar 6 “coeurs”: 2 of the voices have a contraction, 2 don’t. I have left it uncontracted.
Optional underlay suggestions, bar 10, T. Ok.
RF: The title is just a question of typography, no? I would leave it uncontracted throughout.
II,18 Je souffre passion
Bar 7-8, 44, S and T: is this better underlay?
bars 6 and 44, af-fe-ction. From now on I will split all words ending in “-ction” like this.
RF: ct together is our new policy. The underlay in 7-8 and 44 is another case of which rule broken first: no syllables on small notes, or keep the melisma for the end? Delaying ‘con-for’ has the plus of allowing simultaneous declamation with CT and B, which perhaps add rhetorical nuance to what’s being said (a wish for self- assurance that is reflected in the ‘wishful’ coordination). Depends how you want to read it.
II,20 Qui souhaitez
“Souhaitez” spelt with one “t” in table, two in vocal parts.
Bar 12ff, “ex-em-ple” or “e-xem-ple”. Etymology suggests it should be “ex-em-ple” on the analogy with “des-es-poir” (“ex” being a prefix: Latin “ex” + “emere”).
Bass, bar 25ff, comma after “au” in phrase “c’est au Soleil”. This is clearly a mistake and doesn’t conform to 16th-cent. usage. In any case, according to our majority rule, the comma disappears as it is not in the other voices.
23ff, CT: “Voller au ciel”. It makes sense if one assumes that the typesetter accidentally omitted a phrase:
RF: More chaos with the database, since I think it is two different ways here too. OK on word division. Right reasoning with the comma.
What was meant to appear:
Voller au ciel, ij Voller au ciel
What actually appears:
ij Voller au ciel
I have assumed that ij refers to an omitted phrase “Voller au Ciel,”, not “audacieusement” (the word before), which does not fit.
According to my reckoning, the omitted phrase should appear in brackets, then there should be a phrase in italics (for the ij phrase), then one in roman. See also footnote. Do you agree?
RF: Yes, I think the typesetter went to lunch at this point. Clearly the first instance is [roman]. And the last is just Roman, with no brackets. The middle one must be editorial, since it’s not an expansion of anything the typesetter put there. So [roman] too. But if it slips through as italics, I don’t mind.
II,21 Qu’est il
15. Placement of “second time” text. Cf II,26, bar 17,same problem. Also II,17, bar 12 – and probably other places that we don’t know until the final formatting has been done.
Bar 16.3 ff, Superius: I have changed word underlay. I think it is better now.
Bar 32.3. Footnote concerning misplaced repeat sign. Isn’t this the sort of typesetter error that we should mention in the critical commentary (along with wrong length notes/rests etc.)? By the way, this is the only case I have so far found of a misplaced repeat sign.
RF: I would just move ‘voir’ down at m 14 for the second time text. The rest of the line is OK. With Sibelius this is easy. Delete one ‘voir’ then insert a Lyric2 and re-enter. Right, don’t emend 16.3 S. Yes, now I see your point about the repeat sign. Sometimes they are not misplaced, but simply the voices have different amounts of text for the second ending. Here the guy just misread the link point, perhaps because the tied SB threw him off (cannot easily return to the middle of a note!)
II,22 Margot
Bar 35.3. There’s no doubt the unprepared 4th (T and B) is uncanonical. Is there some expressive justification for it? I don’t think so. I am fairly sure that it was unintended. Are we just going to leave it without suggesting an alternative?
To explain the issue a little more clearly, I have rewritten the commentary (see footnotes and commentaries).
RF: Well, it’s a fairly crude poem, even by the standards of the day. I would note the motivic connection between T m 35 and CT m 39, a correspondence that points out the word play at work between the two passages. So on this grounds we might keep the lousy counterpoint. No wonder the piece is anonymous.
II,23 La terre, l’eau
Table has “La terre l’eau” without comma. Voice parts all have comma.
Bar 37, canonical voice, E: = E flat ficta or real E flats? I have changed it to ficta: it should definitely be E flat, given the E flat in the bass. Also, it is a canon without exact replication of major and minor intervals, so probably the flat cannot be taken as “Gospel”, so needs to be shown as ficta.
RF: OK on table, as we must check the Coeurdevey database. I agree that it must be sung as E-flat. Some canons, I suppose could be sung in transposition, and the singer would remember about the ‘fa’ simply as part of that. But not in this piece, with it’s odd reversals and inversions.
II,24. Sur la verdure
I wasn’t sure of punctuation, because of the square brackets. I wanted to put the full stop somewhere, but where?
In the end I chose:
(for CT and T)
Quant vis qu’aul-tre d’el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant, [Quant vis qu'aul-tre d'el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant]. Sur la ver-du-re.
(for S and B)
Quant vis qu’aul-tre d’el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant, [d'el-le es-toit jou-ys-sant]. [my preference.]
[comma before repetition, point OUTSIDE square bracket : seems the most logical]
RF: Yes, this is good.
Thanks for all these keenly observed details!
Tags: Edit Guidelines--Texts