Le serviteur hault guerdonné 3v · Du Fay, Guillaume
Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:
*Dijon ff. 92v-93 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Laborde Index »Le serviteur« (missing in MS) · Facsimile
*Wolfenbüttel ff. 24v-25 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Other musical sources:
Berlin 78.C.28 ff. 4v-5 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v
Escorial IV.a.24 ff. 76v-77 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Facsimile (80)
Florence 2794 ff. 22v-23 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Facsimile
Montecassino 871 p. 347 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v Duffay
Paris 15123 ff. 92v-93 »I sol tuo servitor donna gentile« 3v · Facsimile
Paris 2973 ff. 33v-34 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Facsimile
*Paris 4379 ff. 25v-26 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Pavia 362 ff. 40v-41 »Le serviteur hault guerdonné« 3v
Perugia 431 ff. 67v-68 »Le servitor« 3v · Facsimile
Porto 714 ff. 64v-65 »Le servitor mal guerdone« 3v
Rome XIII.27 ff. 84v-85 »Le servitor« 3v · Facsimile
Trento 90 f. 358v »Superno nunc emittitur« 3v · Facsimile
This page with editions as a PDF
Reworkings, citations, and use of material, see Meconi 1994, p. 34, and Fallows 1999, pp. 252-253.
Edition: Gutiérrez-Denhoff 1988 no. 20 (Wolfenbüttel).
Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Dijon and Wolfenbüttel; also in Escorial IV.a.24, Paris 2973, Paris 4379, Pavia 362; also found in Berlin 78.B.17 f. 91v, ed.: Löpelmann 1923, p. 142, London 380 f. 241v, Paris 1719 ff. 87-87v, Jardin 1501 f. 87, Namur Archives f. 363v, ed.: Montellier 1939, p. 199.
After Dijon:
|
Le serviteur hault guerdonné, Il me semble au prime estre né, le serviteur hault guerdonné, J’estoie l’omme habandonné Le serviteur hault guerdonné, |
The highly rewarded servant, I feel as though I have been reborn, the highly rewarded servant, I was an abandoned man The highly rewarded servant, |
1) Wolfenbüttel, line 14, “... vostre begnivolance”
1) Dijon, line 15, “vest confermer ...” (error)
Evaluation of the sources:
The song “Le serviteur” was composed sometime in the 1440s and achieved great fame and wide circulation. This is documented not only by the many sources for the song from the second half of the fifteenth century, primarily Italian, but also by the fact that the song is discussed in contemporary music theory literature. It is also cited in a number of poems and literary works, especially by Molinet, and it appears with Italian an Latin texts; furthermore, since the 1450s it has formed the basis for a great number of musical adaptations, including masses by Fauges and Agricola. Only one manuscript in the list above mentions “Duffay” as its composer. It is the mixed collection in Montecassino, Biblioteca dell’Abbazia, Ms. 871, which was created in southern Italy in the 1480s. However, a letter from the music theorist Giovanni del Lago from 1520 mentions “Le serviteur” as a song by Guillaume Du Fay. At least in Italy, “Le serviteur” was considered an exemplary composition by Du Fay. Nothing in the song's melodic charm and intricate design can contradict this assessment.
David Fallows has aptly remarked that "For a song in so many surviving sources, its list of variants is astonishingly short" (Fallows 1995, p. 261). The very finished nature of the song has not encouraged creative changes during its dissemination. This is also true of the two versions of the song that are preserved in the ‘Loire Valley’ chansonniers, in Dijon and Wolfenbüttel; the pages that contained the song in Laborde have now disappeared. The two versions are so similar musically that they could have been copied from the same exemplar, with only a dotted figure in bar 23 and a few differences in the use of ligatures separating them. However, a variant in the tierce-section of the poem indicates that their exemplars belonged to different traditions. In Dijon, the third line of this section (line 14) reads “lors que vostre humble veullance”, while in Wolfenbüttel it reads “lors que vostre begnivolance” – in both cases the line has the correct number of nine syllables.
This line has caused problems. In the other sources where the word “humble” appears as in Dijon (MSS Paris 2973 (Cordiforme), Escorial IV.a.24 and Namur Archives) it causes a line that is one syllable too long in the form “... humble bien vueillance” (or variants thereof). The Dijon version manages this by omitting “bien”, while Wolfenbüttel and other sources (MS Paris 4379 and the text collections Jardin de plaisance and MS Paris 1719) omit “humble” and transform “bien” into “benivolance”. A third solution is again to omit “humble” and then change “lors” to “alors”, as we see in two sources (MSS Pavia 362 and Berlin 78.B.17 (Rohan)). It is quite interesting to note that Dijon and Wolfenbüttel, which are musically identical, choose different methods to make this line suitable for performance.
The majority of the sources for “Le serviteur”, mostly Italian, are provided with hexachordal signatures of two flats in all voices. Therefore, the existing literature has assumed that this was the original disposition of the song and that the C tonality with two prescribed flats was the irregular first mode discussed by theorists. This is probably true, at least for Italy. However, it overlooks the fact that in no less than four sources, three of which are French, the song is only provided with one flat in each voice supplemented with accidentals. In addition to Dijon and Wolfenbüttel, these include the French chansonnier in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ms. 2794, which was produced by the same workshop that completed the Dijon and Laborde chansonniers, (1) and the somewhat later manuscript from Naples in Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, Ms. 431.
The song works perfectly in C Dorian with the two-flat signatures, but gains greater tonal scope in the ‘Loire’ manuscripts’ version with one-flat signatures and the prescribed accidentals. Here the tonal development at the end turns from C Dorian to the bright C Mixolydian – in complete agreement with the poem's happy final line “d’un tout seul mot bien ordonné”, and in this interpretation the first mode becomes even more irregular. In fact, the song demonstrates a mastery in shaping the music so that it works regardless of the combinations of hexachordal signatures with which it is notated. This may also be taken as confirmation of Du Fay’s authorship.
The tonal contrasts are further enhanced in the version of “Le serviteur” preserved in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. nouv. acq. fr. 4379, which together with another fragment in Seville, Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina, MS 5-1-43, make up most of a chansonnier written in Naples around 1480. Here the one-flat signatures in the lower voices are only introduced in bar 10, where they create a sudden darkening of the sound after the dominance of C- and G-hexachords in the preceding passage (see the edition). Furthermore, the one-flat signature in the contratenor disappears in the final, fauxbourdon-like ending.
Comments on text and music:
For once, the lover in this rondeau is completely happy, having been accepted by the adored one through a single well-chosen word. The refined musical setting – I refer to the version transmitted by Dijon and Wolfenbüttel – involves three male voices, an upper voice in the range g-b' and tenor and countertenor in the same range a fifth lower, c-e'. All three voices take turns calling upon the listener's attention to an unusual degree while simultaneously fulfilling their traditional roles in a song from the 1440s.
The first two lines have the superius as the leading voice, but the tenor pushes forward with an emotional leap up to e'-flat at the start of the second line (b. 5), which in these lines forces the flattening of E in all three voices. It is striking that after the first cadence to G with the leading note in the upper voice, the tenor takes over and ends its outburst with a cadence to C in bar 7, after which the line ending to C in bar 9 between the superius and tenor is reinforced with a traditional cadence embellishment in the contra. This figure leads to the fifth in the cadence and at the same time sets in motion the subsequent imitation figure. The third line opens with a unison canonic imitation of an energetic motif, in which all three voices participate, and slides into a fauxbourdon-like cadence to D. It constitutes the mid-cadence of the rondeau but is camouflaged by the bridging continuation of the upper voice.
The song’s tonal development becomes sharply profiled in MS Paris 4379, which in the first two lines is devoid of hexachordal signatures in the lower voices and avoids the E-flats. Its sound is here dominated by C-, F- and G-hexachords, and a strong tonal contrast appears when the flats are introduced along with the imitation motif in bar 10.
Both lines in the second section start with three-part canonic unison imitation, which sounds like a song for equal voices that then expands into larger tonal spaces. First on a calm motif that stays within the f-hexachord, then the accidental e'-flat is required to bring on a short cadential motif (b. 24), which refers to and revives the tenor’s outburst in bar 5. The final flourish starts in the tenor bar 27.2 and is followed by the superius in free canon an octave higher; the canonic structure clearly presents the rising C-hexachord and forces the ending of the song into C-Mixolydian. The brightening of the sound and the increase of rhythmic activity perfectly balance the preceding passages' emphasis on the Dorian colouring.
I think that Du Fay's concept of the song was with one-flat hexachordal signatures in all three voices. If it had been conceived with two-flat signatures, it could just as well have been notated a tone higher without signatures, in D-Dorian, and performed with inflections corresponding to the A-flats in all modern editions. (2) By composing the song in C with one-flat signatures Du Fay took advantage of the opportunity to alternate between E-flat and E-natural (supported by accidentals) in a way that in D-Dorian would have involved the use of sharps, which was not part of the notational norms of the time. Furthermore, its striking tonal nuances may be part of the explanation for the challenge and attraction that “Le serviteur” posed, as it became the source of numerous adaptations and new compositions from as early as the middle of the century.
PWCH March 2026
1) Cf. my article ‘The French musical manuscript in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ms. 2794, and the ‘Loire Valley’ chansonniers’ 2012.
2) See for example Guillaume Dufay (ed. H. Besseler, rev. D. Fallows), Opera omnia VI – Cantiones (Corpus mensurabilis musicae 1) 1995, no. 92.