Freedman Responses to Chater questions.

May 28 2010

General

1. I have replaced the titles with the incipits as found in the contents table. However, this brings the problem that the spelling is often at variance with the spelling found in the music. In these cases I have followed the music and noted the discrepancies below.

RF:  This is tricky, since we said that we would follow the table of contents in the naming of the pieces.  What is the policy for the Basse de données on the CESR web site?  And in our table of contents pages for the Du Chemin system?

2. Richard has stated a preference for 2^nd time text to be placed on the lower line. I’ve no objection, but it’s a lot of work, as I have done them all on the first line! What do other editions do? The trouble is, the format has to be “settled” before you do this; otherwise, each time the system division changes location, you are going to have to reformat.

I will keep them as they are for the moment and leave it to you and Vincent to decide. The only problem is that when you go on to the next system the line has to revert the upper line. This is tricky as the system change keeps changing accord as the format changes. So for the moment I have left it as it is and Vincent can change it after the final format has been established. But maybe this should be reconsidered?  See my further remarks below, at II,21.

RF:   This is a very small detail of layout, although I agree that it would be best for things to be consistent.  I would suggest that _just_ the last syllable of the second line be moved lower, so that the singer will see it in relation to the second verse.  The _remainder_ of the text in that voice part (that is, after the second ending) can revert back to the normal position for single verses.  This is in any case what Du Chemin’s typesetters do.

3. It is often difficult to decide if 2 syllables separated by a gap make up one or two words. The typesetter does not use hyphens but leaves a gap between 2 syllables belonging to the same word.

Individual cases discussed below. My knowledge of old French is not sufficient for me to be completely sure. Maybe consult a dictionary of sixteenth-century French if one can be found?

RF:  I think the editor will need to use some judgment here, just as Du Chemin’s singers needed to.  What does the Fiala project do in such cases?   I agree that reference to a dictionary of old French might help.  What is our shared resource for Fiala and Freedman?  The big dictionary I know is Huguet, Dictionnaire de la langue française du seizieme siecle (Champion, 1933ff).  But perhaps there is something newer, like the Chicago Artfl Project, and its Dictionnaire d’autrefois.

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 16^th-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, 2^nd 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 16^th-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 4^th (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!

CESR Du Chemin Project

CESR Programme Ricercar

CESR Bibliothèques virtuelles humanistes

National Endowment for the Humanities
Office of Digital Humanities

Dublin Core Metadata

Text Encoding Initiative

Music Encoding Initiatve (MEI-C.org)

University of Chicago Artfl Project:  Dictionnaire d’autrefois

Jenni Bloxam’s St. Donation Mass Project:

Jennifer Thomas’s Motet Database

DIAMM  [Facsimile and Catalog Project]

CMME  [Digital Music Editions]

Loire Valley Chansonniers (Concordance and Facsimile to Mellon Chansonnier, with Laborde, Copenhagen, Dijon, and Wolfenbuttel):

Copenhagen Chansonnier Project

Laborde Chansonnier Facsimile

Wolfenbuttel Chansonnier Facsimile

Mellon Chansonnier Facsimile

Dutch National Library Medieval Songbook Project

Rob Wegman—Renaissance Mass Project

Our Colleagues at the CESR have made some excellent progress towards a working model of the site.  Follow the link below and see what you think of the basic functions, layout.  Of course there will be changes, but this should give a sense of how things work.

So far, you can search (but only the Premier livre has full images and transcriptions), scroll through books, toggle among the voice parts, download PDFs, and download transcriptions.

Test Version of the Du Chemin Site

If you would like to PLAY the transcriptions using Sibelius Scorch player, you will need to install the Scorch player using the link below.

Instructions for Scorch Download

Can you imagine a repertory you’d like to see treated in this way in the months and years to come?  Tell us something about it.  How defined?  What problems of access to originals?  What audiences?  Possibilities for pedagogical or research uses?  Performance?

What new tools would you like to see developed for searching, displaying, and sharing?

• Transcribe (modern transcriptions of the approximately 300 chansons found in the 11 complete sets of Du Chemin’s chansonniers, with the added ability to download these in various formats, including for use with the free Sibelius Scorch Player that will permit users to display, print, and hear the music without the purchase of additional software. We will also provide blank templates for use by students and others who would like to learn how to transcribe Renaissance notation themselves. We will post partial transcriptions of works that remain incomplete, inviting participants to try their hand at re-composing the remaining pair of voices based on aspects of musical style seen elsewhere in the volumes);

• Learn (with links to the commentaries on the music, to the biographical gazetteer of the composers represented, plus a bibliographical notice for each composition listing information on literary texts, rival settings, other modern editions, or secondary literature);
• Collaborate (electronic forums for exchange of questions, ideas, or information by scholars, students, and performers; links to related resources, announcements of concerts or scholarly conferences, sharing of transcriptions, etc). This will probably take the form of a moderated social media site, perhaps like this one.

•   Search (by book, composer, poet, incipit, etc., with ability to sort results by various criteria;  the commentaries will also be fully searchable);
•   View (high-quality scans of the albums, with facility for scrolling through books, toggling through all voice parts of a composition, plus the ability to download the facsimiles as PDF files in various combinations–such as individual voice part, all parts for a piece, an entire book, etc.);

Questions:

• What to do with compositions that are longer than one page?
• What to do with works having conflicting attributions?
• Do we imagine that scholars will want to study questions of mode and/or tonal type? Can tonal types simply be from a list, as one field, or as they are here? If only tonal types, will that limit searches (by final, for example)?
• What other fields would we need if (eventually) the database is expanded to (for example) motets, madrigals?

Our initial project will build on an existing database compiled at the CESR for the French chanson of the 16th century. This data set will provide the foundation for our “search” tool. But of course we will want to think about other fields that will be useful when our scope expands. Consider:

• Composer: a regularized list, or as they appear in the original books? And if the former, how will we handle questions of conflicting attributions?

• Text incipit: Regular spellings, as the CESR database currently uses, or to follow original spellings?

• Number of Voices: In the Du Chemin set, all but one of the works is for 4 voices. But clearly we will need a field for this as the project expands.

• Musical source: Title of book where this image can be found
• Publisher: Name of printer
• Date:
• Standard reference: RISM or other standard reference to the source?
• Location: which copy of the source?

• Fields identifying the exact reference of the image

• Superius This will be the number of our image
• Altus This will be the number of our image
• Tenor This will be the number of our image
• Bassus This will be the number of our image
• Quintus, etc.

• Folios: We might need this for manuscript sources
• Clefs: All four, or just superius?
• Final: Lowest note of bassus. Or some other indication of ‘mode’?
• System: hard/soft

• Language:
• Poet: (when known)
• Literary Source : (when known)
• Verse form:
• Meter:

• Image type:
• Resolution :

• Modern edition of composition:
• Commentary in this Resource: This will be a link.
• Transcription in this Resource Sib and scorch.htm file

• Settings of same text by other composers:
• Composition on same page: [In the case of books where adjacent pieces might bear relationship to each other]

Here is a list of those who are taking part in the project:
Coming to Haverford for March 16, 2009:

• Stefano Mengozzi, University of Michigan “smeng@umich.edu“
• Giuseppe Gerbino, Columbia University “gg2024@columbia.edu“
• Honey Meconi, University of Rochester “hmeconi@rochester.edu“
• Patrick Macey, Eastman School of Music “pmacey@esm.rochester.edu“
• Jennifer Bloxam, Williams College “jbloxam@williams.edu“
• Cynthia Cyrus, Vanderbilt University “cynthia.cyrus@vanderbilt.edu“
• Jennifer Thomas, University of Florida “thomasjs@ufl.edu“

Still others who have expressed interest, but will not be able to attend:

• David Crook, University of Wisconsin “dcrook@wisc.edu“
• Joshua Rifkin, Cambridge, MA “jrifkin@compuserve.com“
• Bob Kendrick, University of Chicago, “rkendric@uchicago.edu“
• Kristine Forney, University of California “kforney_enjoy@yahoo.com“

Colleagues at Haverford College who will join us March 16:

• John Anderies, Special Collections Librarian, “janderie@haverford.edu“
• Michelle Oswell, Music Librarian, “moswell@haverford.edu“
• Norm Medeiros, Associate Librarian of the College, “nmedeiros@haverford.edu“
• Laurie Allen, Coordinator for Research, “lallen@haverford.edu“
• Laura McGrane, English Department, “lmcgrane@haverford.edu“
• David Moore, Web Designer, “dmoore@haverford.edu“

And of course our colleagues from the CESR in Tours, France:

• Philippe Vendrix, Director, “vendrix@univ-tours.fr“

• Vincent Besson, Engraver and Designer, “vincent.besson@univ-tours.fr“