Song Networks around 1500: The Chansonnier de Bayeux (BnF, fr. 9346) and Related Sources

The Chansonnier de Bayeux (Bibliothèque nationale de France, fr. 9346) is one of two monophonic song anthologies in French compiled around 1500. Both chansonniers (the other being BnF, fr. 12744) transmit a large repertory of one-voice-songs, sharing about one third of them. This is quite exceptional, since most chansonniers of the time are polyphonic in nature and, indeed, the Renaissance has sometimes been labelled as the “Golden Age of Polyphony”. After a short introduction showing the structure of Bayeux in comparison with other contemporary song anthologies and on the backdrop of music manuscripts in the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, the talk will explore the role played by Bayeux and its monophonic ‘twin’ and their likely origins and significance in the musical landscape of late medieval/early Renaissance France and Europe. This will be illustrated by a couple of prominent examples highlighting the diffusion of some of these songs throughout Western Europe and the different ‘forms’ they are likely to take, thus problematizing the concept of a ‘fixed’ musical work in this age.

Speaker

Carlo Bosi

LE STUDIUM / FIAS Research Fellow 

FROM: Mozarteum University & Paris Lodron University of Salzburg - AT
IN RESIDENCE AT: Centre for Advanced Studies in the Renaissance (CESR)  / CNRS, University of Tours - FR