Ravy d’amours, despourveu de bon sens 3v · Anonymous
Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:
*Dijon ff. 132v-133 »Ravy d’amours despourveu de bon sens« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
*Leuven ff. 74v-76 »Ravy d’amours despourveu de bon sens« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
*Wolfenbüttel ff. 53v-54 »Ravi d’amours despourveu de bon sens« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Other source:
Perugia 1013 ff. 107v-108 [Without text] 3v
This page with editions as a PDF
Edition: Gutiérrez-Denhoff 1988 no. 44 (Wolfenbüttel – faulty).
Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Dijon, Leuven and Wolfenbüttel; also found in Berlin 78.B.17 ff. 96-96v, ed.: Löpelmann 1923, p. 153; Lille 402 no. 41, ed.: Françon 1938, p. 154; Paris 1719 f. 108v; Paris 1722 f. 90; Paris 7559 f. 55, ed.: Bancel 1875, p. 6; Jardin 1501 f. 91v.
The poem according to Dijon:
Ravy d’amours, despourveu de bon sens, Avise toi, emploie tes cinq sens Ravy d’amours, despourveu de bon sens, Se ne le fais, des fois l’eure cinq cens Ravy d’amours, despourveu de bon sens, |
Seduced by love, robbed of good sense, Look out! Use your five senses Seduced by love, robbed of good sense, If you do not do it, you will curse the hour Seduced by love, robbed of good sense, |
1) Dijon, line 3, “... passage perilleux" (error)
2) Wolfenbüttel, line 8, “car les loyaulx ..."
3) Wolfenbüttel, line 13, “... et de tous absens” (error)
Evaluation of the sources:
The song was entered in the Dijon and Wolfenbüttel chansonniers by their main scribes and in the Leuven chansonnier by the second scribe in nearly identical versions. Small differences show that different exemplars were used. Compared to Leuven, Dijon differs in some melodic details in bars 5, 7, 8, 14, 27-28 and 31. Wolfenbüttel shows some of these variants and adds a sharp in the tenor bar 17 and a flat before the low B in the contra bar 36 changing the colouring a bit. The poem, as the many text sources show, had a wide circulation and enjoyed a long-lived popularity. The music, on the other hand, was most probable a local creation.
All three sources agree completely on the last phrase of the song, which includes a demonstration of the use of proportions and rhythmical subtleties (bb. 33 ff). The superius is in coloration, which produces semibrevis triplets, the contratenor is in sesquialtera with two semibreves to a bar, which each divide in three minimae, while the tenor plods on in double time, but notated first in proportio dupla, which halves the note values, and then – cumulative – in tempus imperfectum diminutum halving them once more. This means that the notes in the tenor in this passage first appear doubled, then quadrupled. The composer could just as well have continued with semibreves in straight tempus imperfectum (see the alternative p. 2b in the edition of the Wolfenbüttel version), but the piece is obviously created as a demonstration of what one can do with proportions. This is also the reason why it was incorporated in the early 16th century collection of music treatises in Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, Ms. 1013, where it is found among a series of music examples illustrating the teachings of Johannes Tinctoris. It is placed between two examples composed by Tinctoris, which also appear in his De arte contrapuncti, Liber secundus. 1)
Comments on text and music:
The lover (male or female) speaks to himself or to his heart in artful rich rimes equivoques. It is angry talk, because infatuation by love seems to have overruled all reason.These words are set to music, which in performance at its end demands some degree of reason in order to understand the notation.
The musical setting uses a standard layout of the voices for a song with a low contratenor (a-d'', d-f', A-d'), and it opens with an imitation, in which all three voices participate. It looks like a modern song for its time. However, the contratenor does not have an independent profile. It often crosses above the tenor, is curiously abrupt with great leaps and many short rests; in bar 12 the canonic imitation between tenor and superius forces the contratenor to sing in parallel fifths with the superius after a leap upwards of a seventh. Cadences are modern, except for the fauxbourdon cadence with double suspensions, which ends the second line (bb. 14-16). Obviously, most care has been lavished on the upper voice, which is designed with attention to the words of the refrain, while the tenor has less character.
The setting has lots of varietas. From the imitative two first lines it suddenly turns to insistent text declamation in the third, and the second section opens with a rhetorical question – also in the musical declamation, before becoming livelier. The voices explore their full ranges with fast changes between high and low registers – not convincingly organic in every case. The modern surface cannot hide that the composer is most at home in the music of the Du Fay generation. The song does seem a bit like a youthful exercise, eager to prove proficiency in just too many things.
The final line (bb. 33-42) demonstrating the composer’s skill in combining different sort of rhythmic manipulation with all three voices ending in different interpretations of coloration is worked out with great care, and is a quite elegant illustration of the words. But with the tenor marching on in equal semibreves in the sounding realisation, the line does not really belong in a chanson. Taken out as an independent passage these bars are suspicious similar to the three-part examples in Tinctoris’s treatise on counterpoint.
It is tempting to propose that this song was composed by Tinctoris at some time during the 1460s, when he was studying and working as a teacher and singer in Orléans and Chartres, in the local area for the repertory of the ‘Loire Valley’ chansonniers, and before he went to Naples. Or, considering the blatant parallel fifths and the youthful overreach, it might be by one of his pupils.
PWCH May 2023
1) Cf. Bonnie J. Blackburn, ‘A Lost Guide to Tinctoris's Teachings Recovered’, Early Music History. Studies in medieval and early modern music 1 (1981) pp. 29-116.