Anonymous · Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez 3v

Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez 3v · Anonymous

Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:

*Leuven ff. 78v-79 »Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez« 3v · Edition · Facsimile

Text: Rondeau quatrain, full text in Leuven.

Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez
pour ung serviteur hors de grace,
qu’on a la mis par grande espace
avec les pechez oubliez.

Helas! il est si traveillez
que je crains qu’il ne se defface.

Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez
pour ung serviteur hors de grace.

Et s’il est si treffort liez
que la mort sa vie trespasse,
je pry et requier qu’on pourchasse
que ces motz soient publiez.

Vraiz amans, pour dieu suppliez
pour ung serviteur hors de grace,
qu’on a la mis par grande espace
avec les pechez oubliez.

True lovers, for God’s sake pray
for a servant out of favour,
who was put there for a long time
with the sins forgotten.

Alas, he is so tortured
that I fear he will end his life.

True lovers, for God’s sake pray
for a servant out of favour.

And if he is so tightly bound
that death ends his life
I pray and require that you strive
to make these words known.

True lovers, for God’s sake pray
for a servant out of favour,
who was put there for a long time
with the sins forgotten.

Evaluation of the source:

The unique rondeau was entered into the Leuven chansonnier by its second scribe who collaborated with the main writer on the completion of the chansonnier. It is notated without any hexachordal signatures, but places accidental flats in the superius before f’’ in bars 4 and 18 in order to signal that the hexachord on c’’ – extra manum  is used. In bars 8 and 9 flats appear before e in the contratenor and before b’ in the superius to ensure the music’s turn to the flat side; for the tenor part, the notation relies on the unmistakable shape of the f-hexachord to provide the performance of the b-flats.

Only a single writing error appears in the upper voices (b’ instead of d’’ in b. 11), and the copying of the words below the upper voice is very careful as demonstrated by bars 8-10, where precise placement of “hors de grace” underscores the simultaneous pronouncement of the words in all three voices. However, the ending of the contratenor may be corrupt in this version. In his eagerness to accelerate and enhance the polyphony, the composer’s ambition seems to have been overpowered by his lack of ability, and he might have thought that the dissonances created by small note values might be allowable; they appear in several other places. Therefore, the original contratenor as shown in the example last in the edition might be the composer’s intention, if bar 17 gets a slight emendation. The real problem for the composer is his design of the tenor in this passage, which forces the other voices into problematic behaviour. Another dissonance may be a writing error: The contratenor e in bar 3.2 may be emended to f; but again, it is not easy to know the composer’s mind.

Comments on text and music:

This male love complaint, praying and demanding that his woes become known, is set for voices in a high tessitura: Superius and tenor in the ranges d’-f’’ and f-a’ in an imitative duet with snatches of canon at the beginning of both sections, and they are supported by a contratenor a fourth below the tenor, c-e’; the voices never cross each other except at the middle cadence, where the contratenor takes the fifth above the tenor with an octave leap.

The opening motif in octave canon between the upper voices is the same which can be found in three songs in Leuven’s eighth fascicle, »Tousdis vous voit mon souvenir«, »Donnez l’aumosne, chiere dame« and »Si vous voulez que je vous ame«; in the two last songs in similar canonic octave imitation in the couplets. The composer is the same in all four cases. This is emphasized by the fact that one of his distinctive features, embellishing a longer note with a dissonant downward turning note, appears here several times in exposed places: in superius bar 3, and in a sort of imitation between tenor and superius bars 8 and 17. It was clearly the composer’s intention to provide an impressive ending to the song, but as described above, something went wrong either in the copying or else his skill did not match his ambition.

Parts of this text are included in my publication The unica of the Leuven chansonnier – a portfolio of songs by an ambitious young musician, August 2024.

PWCH July 2024