Musical life and civic identity in Renaissance France (c.1500-c.1650)
Vie musicale et identité urbaine dans la France de la Renaissance (ca.1500–ca.1650)

February 08, 2024 - February 09, 2024
Conference

Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance (CESR)
59 rue Néricault Destouches
37000 Tours
France

Presentation

France’s remarkable place in the history of music during the Renaissance period is undeniable. Indeed, its composers – both those who were born there or those who worked in this region – encompass some of the era’s most celebrated names, like Du Fay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Mouton, Janequin, and Lassus. No less important was France’s contribution to the evolvement of certain genres such as the chanson. Yet there is another side to France’s musical history from this time: that of the urban environment. What was the music that characterised everyday life in France during the Renaissance period? What music, for example, was heard on the streets or in the country’s smaller ecclesiastical establishments? Who were the musicians responsible for making such music? Equally, how was music used by French towns and cities in the construction of their civic identity? What role did music play in the popular politics of this time?

 

This conference will explore such questions with the aim of extending current knowledge of France’s musical life between c.1500 and c.1650. Although previous musicological work has already been done for certain French cities at this time (like Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse), the situation for many cities and towns remains almost completely unexplored or still often relies on the scholarship of nineteenth-century local historians. In an attempt to address this lacuna, this conference will encompass 15 papers given by scholars based in France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the UK, and the USA. The papers will address a wide range of subjects: these will include questions relating to the minstrels and musicians who contributed to urban musical culture in French cities during this period; the personnel connected to certain cities’ sacred institutions (cathedrals, collegiate churches, confraternities, and so on); the use of music in civic festivals, among them processions and ceremonial entries; and ways in which surviving music from Renaissance France raises questions of identity.

 

The conference will be supplemented by a concert reconstruction of the music heard in Maria de’ Medici’s Avignon entry of 1600, performed by three internationally renowned French early music groups: Ensemble Clément Janequin, Les Sonadori, and Les Sacqueboutiers. This concert will take place at the Espace Joséphine Baker – Chapelle Du Conservatoire Tours (37000) on Friday 9 February, 2024.

 

This conference forms part of the EU-funded AVIGNONMUSIC project Music, Religion and Civic Identity in Renaissance Avignon led by Alexander Robinson (H2020-MSCA-IF-2021 – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships 2022-2024) under grant agreement no 101063276.

 

Convenors

Dr Alexander Robinson, LE STUDIUM Guest Research Fellow  / MSCA PostDoctoral Fellowship

FROM University of Cambridge - UK

IN RESIDENCE AT Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance (CESR)  / CNRS, University of Tours - FR

 

Prof. Philippe Vendrix

Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance (CESR)  / CNRS, University of Tours - FR

 

JEUDI 8 FEVRIER 2024

13:30 Accueil / Introduction

Trompettistes, ménétriers et la vie musicale populaire

Président de séance : Philippe Vendrix

13:45 Alexander Robinson  (CESR, Tours) – Les trompettistes de la fin de la Renaissance en France : devoirs militaires, fonctions civiles, rôles festifs

14:15 Luc Charles-Dominique (Université Côte d’Azur) –  Les ménétriers et l’identité politique communale à la Renaissance : l’exception toulousaine dans le paysage urbain languedocien et gascon de cette époque

14:45 Cyril Lacheze (Université de Technologie de Belfort-Montbéliard) et Marion Weckerle (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) – Restituer la vie musicale populaire du XVIIe siècle. Le projet Bierfiddlern

15:15 Pause-café

Cérémonies, fêtes, et vie musicale urbaine

Président de séance : Frédéric Billiet

15:45 Camilla Cavicchi (Università degli Studi di Padova, Italie) –  After Dinner. A European ballet organised by Anne of Brittany

16:15 Deanna Pellerano (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Allemagne) – Sound and Conflict in Grenoble during the late 15th and early 16th centuries

16:45 Cindy Pédelaborde (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne/Laboratoire Artes) – Bordeaux et sa musique à la Renaissance

 

VENDREDI 9 FEVRIER 2024

Chantres, processions religieuses et musique religieuse I (c.1500-c.1580)

Présidente de séance : Hanna Walsdorf

9:00 David Fiala (CESR, Tours) – L'attachement urbain des chantres voyageurs, XVe-XVIe siècles

9:30 Simon Frisch (Stanford University, Etats-Unis) – “Pro rege nostro”: Popular and Saintly Intercession for Francis I

10:00 Jeanice Brooks (University of Southampton, Royaume Uni) – Sounding Penitence in Paris under Henri III

10:30 Pause-café

Chantres, processions religieuses et musique religieuse II (c.1580-c.1650)

Président de séance : Thierry Favier

11:00 Sébastien Bujeaud (CESR, Tours) – Typologie sonore des processions à la cathédrale de Rouen, c.1580-1630

11:30 Peter Bennett (Case Western Reserve University, Etats-Unis) – Civic identity and institutional conflict in seventeenth-century Tours: music for the translation ceremonies of 1641

12:00 Charles-Yvan Élissèche (Archives de l’État à Louvain-la-Neuve / UCLouvain, Belgique) – La fondation d’Eustache Picot à la Sainte-Chapelle de Paris entre 1641 et 1790, un marqueur identitaire

12:30 déjeuner-buffet

Au-delà des frontières de la France…

Présidente de séance : Isabelle His

14:00 Marie-Alexis Colin (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgique) – Une vie de chanoine : la musique à Soignies et dans la collégiale Saint-Vincent à travers les testaments des chanoines musiciens durant la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle

14:30Jorge Morales (CESR, Tours) – La vie musicale du cardinal Maurice de Savoie à Nice (1642-1652) : Fêtes, célébrations et identité urbaine

15:00 Pause-café

Chant régional et politique

Présidente de séance : Isabelle His

15:30 Ana Beatriz Mujica (The Graduate Center, City University of New York / CESR, Tours) – Digos uno cansou: chanter en langues régionales en France c. 1550-1650

16:00 Tatiana Debbagi Baranova (Centre Roland Mounier, Sorbonne université, Paris) et Alice Tacaille (Sorbonne université, Paris) – Trésor des chansons françaises (XVI-XVIIe siècles) comme un outil pour des études pluridisciplinaires. Le cas des chansons radicales à Paris et à Lyon après la Saint-Barthélemy.

16:30  Conclusion

19:30 : Concert – « Musiques pour l’entrée en Avignon de Marie de Médicis (1600) »

Ensemble Clément Janequin – Les Sonadori – Les Sacqueboutiers / Espace Joséphine Baker, Chapelle du Conservatoire, Tours

Train

By train:

* Tours centre station
 1.5 hour trip from Paris (Montparnasse)

 * Saint Pierre des Corps (4km from Tours town centre)

Bus 5, 20 minutes trip to Tours centre station

> Plan your trip by train: https://www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/

Voiture

By car:

GPS: 47.3918282,0.6823076
Please note that you can't park in the courtyard in front of the CESR.
Paid car parks nearby : 
Parking Indigo Tours Halles Vieux Tours, 36 Place Gaston Paillhou, 37000 Tours
Parking Gambetta, 8 Rue Gambetta, 37000 Tours
Parking Indigo Tours Nationale, 5 Rue Emile Zola, 37000 Tours

Avion

 By plane:

*Arrival at Roissy Charles De Gaulle (CDG) airport
Take RER B in direction to Saint Rémy Les Chevreuse, step out at Denfert Rochereau Stop
Metro 6 in direction to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, step out at Montparnasse Bienvenue Stop 

> Then take a train to Tours (see "by train" section above)

*Arrival at Paris-Orly (ORY) airport: 

Take Orlyval Shuttle from Aéroport d’Orly in direction Antony, step out at Antony Stop

Take RER B in direction to Mitry Clave, step out at Denfert Rochereau Stop

Take Metro 6 in direction to Charles de Gaulle Etoile, step out at Montparnasse Bienvenue Stop

> Then take a train to Tours (see "by train" section above)  

Partners of the event