Qu’en a affaire Male Bouche 3v · Anonymous
Source:
*Florence 176 ff. 79v-81 »Quem affaire« 3v (unicum) PDF
Text: Rondeau quatrain; incipits only in Florence 176; the complete poem is found in Berlin 78.B.17 f. 179v, ed. Löpelmann 1923 p. 346, Paris 1719 ff. 113v-144, ed. Schwob 1905 no. 47, Paris 1722 f. 8v, Jardin 1501 f. 88.
After Jardin 1501:
Qu’en a affaire Male Bouche, S’on rit, s’on chante, s’on se couche, Qu’en a affaire Male Bouche, Il fauldroit donc comme une souche Qu’en a affaire Male Bouche, |
How can it concern Malebouche, If you laugh, sing, go to bed, how can it concern Malebouche, Therefore you like a root dirty mouth and lying tongue, if some are happy and have fun, when nothing there affects him? |
Evaluation of the source:
The music is copied without errors by the main writer of Florence 176. Of the text he only gave the words “Quem affaire” in superius and contratenor (ff. 79v-80) and “S’aucuns” in superius and tenor in the second half of the rondeau (ff. 80v-81). These words obviously belong to the quite widely circulated rondeau quatrain “Qu’en a affaire Male Bouche”, which perfectly fits the setting.
Owing to the great range of the superius, the part starts in a C1-clef with a key signature of one flat rather ambiguously placed just above the lowest line. When the voice reaches its normal range, a flat is introduced on the f”-line above the system. In the second staff the clef is changed to G2 with a key signature of two flats before b’ and f’’. In the rondeau’s second section the flat on the b’-line disappears. The scribe’s exemplar probably had a key signature of only one flat marking the note F as a fa-step (at the beginning as C1 and fa-sign in the 2nd space and later on as G2 with fa-sign on the 5th line), which the scribe misread – a later hand has tried to erase the flats on the b’-line in staves 2 and 3.
Comments on text and music:
The poem in rimes léonines is a rather cross denunciation of the fixed allegorical figure Malebouche (Gossip), which appears in a rather slight setting for an upper voice in high tessitura and two lower voices in the same range an octave lower. It displays an opening imitation involving all three voices at the same pitch based on the C-hexachord, presented plainly in the contratenor and tenor, but its expressive range seems restricted. Remark, for example, how the tenor seems stuck within the C-hexachord through the whole song except for a few bars before the medial cadence.
See further my Introduction to The Complete Works of Gilles Mureau.
PWCH July 2011