Aubrey Page 1

(troubadours, trouvères, and Minnesinger, Italian laude, Galician-Portuguese cantigas de Santa Maria, cantigas da amigo)

See Elizabeth Aubrey, "Non-Liturgical Monophony: Introduction," in A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), PP. 105-114, especially pp. 106-110.

1. Modal (F. Ludwig, P. Aubry, J.-B. Beck, F. Gennrich, H. Tischler): Rhythm falls into one of the modes of contemporary Notre-Dame polyphony (discant clausulae, motets), as described by 13th-century music theorists. Modes 1 and 3 are favored. Some scholars argue that the accents in the text determine the modal pattern. Others adopt a more flexible approach, allowing irregularities in the modal patterns.

2. Free or declamatory (A. Restori, F. Monterosso, H. van der Werf, C. Page): Rhythm may or may not have measurable values, but is never strictly modal. Recent scholars argue that the melody is entirely subsidiary to the text, which is declaimed following its sound and sense; thus the rhythm can change from one stanza to the next. All notes have more or less equal duration (are isochrorious), but some are stretched or truncated as the text demands.

3. Isosyllabic (U. Sesini, J. Stevens): Every syllable receives equal duration. A neume with one note would be of the same length as a neume with more than one note, whose notes would be of equal value within the syllable. Thus melismas would be sung very fast, while single notes would be relatively long.

4. Structural (E. Jammers, B. Aubrey): Not all songs need be interpreted by the same method; some may be modal, others freely mensural, others declamatory, others isosyllabic. The structure of the melody (repetition, verse and rhyme structure, cadences, motives, etc.), along with notational clues, point the singer to its rhythmic shape, which is not necessarily patterned, but which is roughly the same from stanza to stanza.

Particulars of rhythm in trouvère song

See Elizabeth Aubrey, "Non-Liturgical Monophony: French," in A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music, ed. Ross W. Duffin (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 134-143, especially pp. 138-141.

1. The Old French language is not strongly accentual, and its poetry is governed by syllable count, not stress patterns. Only at the rhymes at the ends of verses and at caesuras is the word accent important in the scansion of the text.

2. Old French songs are in a wide variety of genres and forms, some regarded as "high" in style (courtly chansons, laments), others as more "popular" (dance types, pastourelles). Dance songs might be associated with instruments, which suggests patterned rhythms.

3. About 1/6 of the extant songs (in two of the manuscripts) are given in an early mensural (pre-Franconian) notation, with longs and breves differentiated. Most of these are in rhythmic mode 1 or 3. These modes often do not reflect any accents that may be present in the syllables of the text, although at end rhymes a tonic accent coincides either with a long note of the mode or with the beginning of a foot.

4. French songs are often found as one voice in polyphonic motets of the period, which by necessity would have measured rhythm, usually modal.