Quant vous me ferez plus de bien 3v · Busnoys, Antoine
Appearance in the five chansonniers:
*Copenhagen ff. 29v-30 »Quant vous me ferez plus de bien« 3v PDF - Facsimile
*Dijon ff. 118v-119 »Quant vous me ferez plus de bien« 3v Busnoys PDF (see Copenhagen)
*Nivelle ff. 18v-19 »Quant vous me ferez plus de bien« 3v PDF
- the two different versions in a convenient PDF package.
Edition: Jeppesen 1927 no. 24 (Copenhagen).
Text: Rondeau quatrain; full text in all three sources; also in London 380 f. 247, ed.: Wallis 1929, p. 130, Paris 1719 f. 92v (no. 290), Paris 1722 f. 43 (no. 170), Berlin 78.B.17 f. 141v (no. 392). ed.: Löpelmann 1927, p. 259. After Dijon:
Quant vous me ferez plus de bien Mon cueur est vostre, non pas mien, quant vous me ferez plus de bien Congnoistre pouez assez bien Quant vous me ferez plus de bien |
If you will be good to me My heart is yours, not mine, if you will be good to me You must indeed recognize If you will be good to me |
There are a few differences of spelling in the sources.
Evaluation of the sources:
The Dijon scribe copied Busnoys’ “Quant vous” in Dijon and Copenhagen in identical versions (a small writing error in Copenhagen’s tenor in bar 20 does not alter that). The Nivelle version is very close to it with only very small differences in text, cadential embellishment (S bb. 11.3 and 17.2-3), coloration (S b. 10), and a melodic detail (C b. 7.3). It could easily have been copied from the same exemplar as used by the Dijon scribe.
However, the scribes do not agree in their use of key signatures: The Copenhagen/Dijon version has a signature of one flat in the contratenor, which is without this flat in Nivelle. And in Nivelle a signature of one flat is introduced in the tenor part’s second staff, where it seems completely out of place, while it would have been well placed at the beginning of the third staff. His exemplar eventually could have had the very common combination of an upper voice without signature and two lower voices with a one flat signature. If he realized that the rondeau builds on the contrast of a first section with natural Bs drifting toward A and a second section with flattened Bs with a direction toward the final D, he may have decided to leave out the key signatures completely as the b-flats of the second section will be generated automatically be the common rules for singing polyphony. Then the flat in the tenor’s 2nd staff could just be a slip of concentration.
See also the comments on »Soudainement mon cueur a pris«.
Comments on text and music:
The rondeau’s appeal to the admired lady that she ought to be more accommodating towards her lover seems like a continuation of the story of a sudden falling in love in Busnoys’ bergerette »Soudainement mon cueur a pris«, which comes just before it in Copenhagen and just after it in Dijon. The music, even more elegant than »Soudainement«, also sounds related, as a condensed version of the musical thoughts in »Soudainement« – or vise versa – in respectively double and triple time. Their resemblances can be summarized as follows:
- The Dorian mode on D with its characteristic fluctuation of B-natural and B-flat.
- The same ranges and relationships betwee the voices (»Quant vous« is placed one tone lower than »Soudainement«).
- The opening motive in the superius with an upbeat and the movement d’-f’ and the closing gestures delineating the tonespace between d’ and b’-flat in rhythmically related formulations (see »Soudainement« bb. 41-44, and »Quant vous« bb. 20-23).
- The use of imitation al unisono between superius and tenor at the emotional climaxes of the poems (see »Soudainement« bb. 66 ff, and »Quant vous« bb. 12 ff).
- And most significantly they both start in homorhythmical declamation with an upbeat and preceded by notated general pauses consisting of a whole brevis bar and one or two semibreves in accordance with the mensuration. These general pauses probably do not have any function during a performance and seems to be devices meant to insure absolute notational clarity when a song starts with an upbeat in all voices. Something analogous appears in Michelet’s rondeau »S’il advient que mon dueil me tue«, which is placed near the two Busnoys chansons in the Copenhagen chansonnier (no. 26); see further my note On chansons starting with a general pause.
PWCH May 2009