Nul ne me doit de ce blamer 3v · Anonymous
Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:
*Dijon ff. 142v-143 »Nul ne me doit de ce blamer« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
*Leuven ff. 32v-34 »Nul ne me doit de ce blasmer« 3v · Edition · Facsimile
Other source:
Bologna Q16 ff. 46v-47 »Nul ne me doit« 3v · Facsimile (picture 96)
This page with editions as a PDF
Text: Rondeau cinquain by Orvilier; full text in Dijon and Leuven; also found in Berlin 78.B.17 f. 72, ed.: Löpelmann 1923, p. 95; Paris 1719 ff. 91v-92; Paris 9223 f. 14v “Monsr. d’Orvilier”, ed.: Raynaud 1889, p. 21.
After Leuven:
Nul ne me doit de ce blasmer, Elle a fait mon cueur entamer; 3) Nul ne me doit de ce blasmer, C’est mon bien de l’ouïr nommer, 5) nul ne me doit de ce blasmer, |
No one may blame me for it, She has pierced my heart; No one may blame me for it, It is my happiness to hear her summon, no one may blame me for it, |
1) Dijon, line 2, “... povoir vous veul amer” (error)
2) Dijon, line 3, “cest ou ma ...”
3) Dijon, line 6, “... cueur endurer”
4) Dijon, line 7, “pour tant veul ...” (error)
5) Dijon, line 12, “...d’elle ouï nommer”
6) Dijon, line 13, “... sans nul blamer”
7) Dijon, line 14, “c’est ma liesse ...”
8) Dijon, line 15, “c’est mon chef ...”
Evaluation of the sources:
The Leuven chansonnier has the song without any errors in music and text. The Dijon scribe used a different exemplar with small differences in the text and use of coloration and ligatures. However, either his exemplar was full of errors or the Dijon scribe did a sloppy work, for his version has so many errors in the music and the poem that it is impossible to use it for a performance.
Two variants in Dijon are useful: Bar 1 in the tenor is a dotted figure, which makes the dissonance far more tolerable than the two semibreves in Leuven; and the contratenor has a hexachordal signature of a flat before B removing any doubt about the song’s colouring. The textless version in the Italian collection of the late 1480s in Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, MS Q16, follows Dijon – just without the errors in the music. Also the Bologna version prescribes tempus imperfectum diminutum, which may fit the music better than the undiminished double time of Leuven and Dijon.
Comments on text and music:
The happy love poem in rimes léonines was quite widely circulated in 15th century France, cf. the sources above. One of the collections, ms. f.fr. 9223 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, even gives us the name of its author “Monsr. d’Orvilier”. The setting, however, was probably a local produce.
It is set for voices in normal ranges for songs with a low contratenor (b-d'', B-e', F-c'), but with the contratenor in some places crossing above the tenor. The lyrical song uses imitation sparingly, restricted to the rondeau’s second section for variety; a bit of canonic play with short motives “le feu – qu’Amours” (bb. 33 ff) leads to the final flourish. The mode is Mixolydian with a colouring by hexachords on F in the third line (bb. 16 ff), and the second section opens in a Phrygian vein.
All in all combined with the calm flow of the highest voice, it is a nice varied setting. But the tenor is curiously lacking in profile and dependent on the superius, and the contratenor seems clumsy in its aimless filling out. The composer’s lack of experience in writing polyphony becomes evident in his dissonant handling of the standard cadence formulas at the end of both sections, which both exhibit 9-8 progressions between the upper voices.
PWCH May 2023