On chansons notated in fa-clefs – Overview of linked editions

On chansons notated in fa-clefs – and the question of pitch in
15th century secular music

(Click above to get to the full text of the paper)

Overview of the linked editions

In the overview and in the texts linked to below the following abbreviations are used for the fa-signs, which are configured as clefs:

fa1(-5) = a fa-sign or a flat on one of the five staff-lines (numbered 1-5 from below)
fas1(-5) = a fa-sign in one the five spaces of the staff (numbered (0)1-5)
mi1(-5) = mi-sign or sharp/natural placed in the same way

Barbingant's »L'omme banny de sa plaisance« 3v PDF

in fa-clef notation in Dijon ff. 97v-98, Laborde ff. 66v-67, Chansonnier Pixérécourt (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. f.fr. 15123), ff. 29v-30, Chansonnier Cordiforme (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. Rothschild 2973), ff. 31v-32, and (partly) Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Codice Aldini 362, ff. 21v-22: all anonymous; and under Fede's name in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Ms. Magl. xix.176, ff. 54v-55, and ascribed to Barbingant in the Mellon Chansonnier (New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 91), ff. 30v-31 (see further the page for »L'omme banny«).

Two anonymous songs related to Barbingant’s »L’omme banny«

»L’omme qui vit en esperanche« 3v (unicum) PDF – Facsimile
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. f.fr. 15123, ff. 182v-183: Anonymous

A responce to the well-known rondeau quatrain by Barbingant, »L’omme banny de sa plaisance«, which is found in the chansonniers Nivelle, Dijon and Laborde and five other sources. The text (The man who lives in the hope of love) reverses the meaning of the model poem and cites its first line “L’omme banny …” as the final line of the refrain. As it stands in Paris 15123 the poem has five lines (the last words of the fourth line are unreadable), but as in the model there only seems to be music for four lines. It looks as if the words were created as an afterthought. The setting cites the beginning of Barbingant’s tenor and paraphrases the three-part structure and cadential scheme with a medial cadence on D, all the way through “shadowing” its model, see for example the declamatory second verse line, the imitation motive starting line three, or the approach to the final cadence.

This reworking builds on a reading of version of »L’omme banny« in fa-clefs with an matching combination of flat signs – exactly like the one found earlier in the Pixérécourt MS (Paris 15123), ff. 29v-30 – where one just adds a C2-clef to the superius, and C4- and F3-clefs to the lower voices. That is, just like Tinctoris read Barbingant’s song (see further ‘On chansons notated in fa-clefs’ and the page for »L’omme banny«)

»Plus que pour mille vivant« 3v (unicum) PDF · Facsimile
Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, MS Q16, ff. 71v-72: Anonymous

David Fallows mentions (Fallows 1999, p. 261), that this composition quotes the opening music of Barbingant’s »L’omme banny de sa plaisance«. The likeness is obvious in the first eight bars, hereafter the connection becomes looser. Also, it seems that the first part of the song, which probably was a rondeau according to the signum in superius and tenor (b. 29), was conceived with a song in undiminished tempus as its model. Then, suddenly and rather curiously, after bar 18 it changes its pace to be typical tempus imperfectum diminutum – with movement to the cadences in breves, as if the composer had forgotten what sort of song he was creating.

Three chansons by Binchois
Every PDF-file contains a transcription in high clefs as well as the default reading in fa-clefs.

»Comme femme desconfortee« 3v [Binchois] PDF
in fa-clef notation in Escorial, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Biblioteca y Archivo de Música, MS IV.a.24 (EscB), ff. 131v-132: anonymous, and Munich, Bayrische Staatsbibliothek, Mus.Ms. 9659 (fragments), f. 3v: anonymous (only S and part of T); the rondeau is attributed to Binchois in the Mellon Chansonnier (New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 91), ff. 32v-33 (see further the page for »Comme femme«).

Tous desplaisirs n’en sont prochains« 3v (unicum; Binchois?) PDF
Escorial, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Biblioteca y Archivo de Música, MS V.III.24, ff. 7v-8: anonymous

»Mon seul et souverain desir« 3v [Binchois] PDF · Facsimile
Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc. 213, f. 71v: Binchois
Escorial, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Biblioteca y Archivo de Música, MS V.III.24, ff. 20v-21: anonymous.

Four rondeaux in the Pavia Chansonnier
Pavia, Biblioteca Universitaria, Codice Aldini 362.

»L’omme banny de sa plaisance« 3v, no. 3, ff. 21v-22 [Barbingant]

»Pour avenir a mon actainte« 3v, no. 20, ff. 37v-38 [Anonymous] PDF
Also in Nivelle Chansonnier, ff. 23v-24, and Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, Ms. 2356, ff. 83v-84 (see further the song’s page)

»Par ung seul mot bien ordonné« 3v, no. 27, ff. 45v-46 (unicum) PDF

»Puis qu’il ha pleu a la tres belle« 3v. no. 39, ff. 60v-61 (unicum) PDF

Chansons in the Schedelsches Liederbuch
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. germ. mon. 810, Liederbuch des Hartmann Schedel (c. 1460, Germany). In all cases the copying shows many errors, especially the Contra parts are difficult to reconstruct, cf. the editions.

»Se je fais duel je n’en ouis mais« 3v [Guillaume le Rouge] PDF
Schedel no. 89 + 21a , ff. 103v-105+24v: Anonymous
Also in the Mellon Chansonnier (New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS 91) no. 31, ff.40v-42: G. le Rouge (published in Leeman L. Perkins and H. Garey (eds.), The Mellon Chansonnier I-II. New Haven 1979)

»O florida rosada« 3v (unicum) PDF
Schedel no. 42, ff. 50v-51: Anonymous (contrafactum)

»Tant me desplet« 3v (unicum) PDF
Schedel no. 61, ff. 70v-71: Anonymous

»Du desir que tant« 3v (unicum) PDF
Schedel no. 90, ff. 105v-106: Anonymous

Johannes Ockeghem’s »Prenez sur moi vostre exemple amoureux« 3v PDF
in fa-clef notation in the Copenhagen Chansonnier, f. 39v (see further the page for “Prenez sur moi”).