Tielman Susato (c. 1500-1561) - Dulcian

Tielman Susato (also Tylman) (c. 1500 – 1561) was a Renaissance Flemish composer, instrumentalist and publisher of music in Antwerp. While his place of birth is unknown, some scholars believe that because of his name -- Susato meaning de Soest, of the town of Soest -- he may be from the town of that name in Westphalia.

Not much is known about his early life, but he begins appearing in various Antwerp archives of around 1530 working as a calligrapher as well as an instrumentalist: trumpet, flute and tenor pipe are listed as instruments that he owned. From 1543 until his death he worked as a music publisher, creating the first music press in the Netherlands; until then printing had mainly been done in Italy, France and Germany. Soon afterwards, Susato was joined by Pierre Phalèse at Leuven and Christopher Plantin, also in Antwerp, and the Low Countries became a regional center of music publishing. It is possible that Susato also ran a musical instrument business, and he attempted several times to form partnerships with other publishers but none were successful. Sometime after his death his son, who died in 1564, took over his publishing business.

Susato was also an accomplished composer. He wrote (and published) several books of masses and motets which are in the typical imitative polyphonic style of the time. He also wrote two books of chansons which were specifically designed to be sung by young, inexperienced singers: they are for only two or three voices. Most important of his publications in terms of distribution and influence were the Souterliedekens of Clemens non Papa, which were metrical psalm settings in Dutch, using the tunes of popular songs. They were hugely popular in the Netherlands in the 16th century.

Susato also was a prolific composer of instrumental music, and much of it is still recorded and performed today. He produced one book of dance music in 1551, Het derde musyck boexken ... alderhande danserye, composed of pieces in simple but artistic arrangement. Most of these pieces are dance forms (allemandes, galliards, and so forth) and are simple and homophonic in texture; many are based on current popular songs.



Danserye (1551)

Basse Dansen (Low Dances)

V. Bergerette ("La Brosse") ("Pavanne")





[A simplified version of Susato's Fanfare "La Morisque," despite the incorrect title and part designations]

VI. Fanfare "La Mourisque" - Mi Fa Sol Melody & Tonic-Dominant Harmony

(Wind and Percussion Consort)



(Recorder Consort)




Ronden (Rondes)

Ronde XV / Hupfauf

(Recorders)



Ronde XV (Mixed Consort - Shawms, Sackbutts, Drum)





Branlen (Branles / Brawls / Brawl Dance)

III. Hoboecken Dans (Oboe Dance) (Recorders, Drums, Tambourine)




Allemanden (Allemandes)



Allemande VI-VII




Allemande VIII


IX-X. Recoupe


Pavanen (Pavanes)



IV. Si Pas Souffrir (Dance) (Recorders and Drums)




Gaillarden (Gaillardes)

Gaillard XV ("Le Tout") ("Saltarello)





[Michael Praetorius - Dulcians / Curtals]

Susato - Le Premier Livre des Chansons (1554)

Chanson "Ce Qui Souloit" (Consort of Curtals [Dulcians])



Often Susato dedicated his publications to prominent citizens of the town. Sometimes he devoted an entire volume to the works of one composer (for example Manchicourt and Crecquillon). Not surprisingly, he seems to have favored other Flemish composers as subjects for publication. He was also one of the first to publish music of the great late Renaissance composer Lassus.

***


The dulcian is a Renaissance bass woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include "curtal" in English, "dulzian" in German, "bajón" in Spanish, "douçaine"' in French, "dulciaan" in Dutch, and "fagotto" in Italian.

The predecessor of the modern bassoon, it flourished between 1550 and 1700, but was probably invented earlier. Towards the end of this period it co-existed with, and was then superseded by the baroque bassoon, although it continued to be used in Spain until early in the twentieth century. It was played in both secular and sacred contexts, throughout northern and western Europe, as well as in the New World.

The dulcian is generally made from a single piece of maple, with the bores being drilled and reamed first, and then the outside planed to shape. The reed is attached to the end of a metal bocal, inserted into the top of the small bore. Unlike the bassoon it normally has a flared bell, sometimes made from a separate piece of timber. This bell can sometimes be muted, the mute being either detachable, or built into the instrument. The outside of the instrument can also be covered in leather, like the cornett.

Although the bass in F is the most common size, the dulcian comes in many other sizes: tenor (in C), alto (in F or G) and soprano (in C). There are also examples of a "quart bass" dulcian in C and contrabass in F. The range of each instrument is two and a half octaves, centred around the range of the corresponding singing voice: for example, the bass ranges from C two octaves below middle C, to the G above middle C.

The reed on the dulcian is fully exposed, allowing the player to control the sound and intonation with his embouchure. At the time it first appeared, other double reed instruments either had the reed fully enclosed, like the crumhorn or the bagpipe, or partially enclosed, like the shawm. It has been argued the dulcian displaced the bass shawm, on account of its more convenient size, but it has also been argued that the two co-existed and that the bass shawm appeared at about the same time as the bass dulcian. The instrument seems to have been in wide use by the middle of the sixteenth century. A set of instruments in various sizes exist in Brussels: these have a maker's mark of "Melchor" and are thought to be Spanish. Another well known example is a slightly later instrument in Linz, leather covered and with a built in mute. The latest commonly copied example is by Denner, circa 1700, which also has a built in mute. Modern copies of the Linz instrument have a smoother sound and reach the high notes more easily, this is even more the case for modern copies of the Denner instrument.

The dulcian is a flexible instrument, capable of being loud enough to play in outdoor bands, quiet enough for chamber music, and expressive enough to join in with the choir. Its uses would have included playing dance music with the shawms and sackbutts of the city watch, chamber music, and of course the grand polychoral repertoire from Venice and Germany, such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Heinrich Schütz. There are explicit dulcian parts in the sonatas by Dario Castello.

[8504 Funj Sultanate / 8500 Susato / 8500 Luis de Milan]

Guillaume le Heurteur (c. 1500-1550) - Kortholt

[Kortholts, from Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) - Syntagma Musicum (1619)]

In 1545 French composer Guillaume le Heurteur (c. 1500-1550) was choirmaster and canon at S. Martin in Tours. He published a volume of motets (now lost); his motets, masses, and chansons (in some of which he pokes fun at his clerical colleagues) appeared in anthologies from 1530 onwards.

Bicinium (Kortholts)



Chanson (Recorders)



In music of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras, a bicinium (pl. bicinia) was a composition for only two parts, especially one with a pedagogical purpose.

The term has had two usages in music history:

Recently, the term has come to mean any composition at all from the Renaissance or early Baroque period for two vocal or instrumental parts.

Historically, a bicinium referred specifically to a two-part composition used as a teaching tool, most often in Protestant, German-speaking areas.

The term was first used in Poland, by Jan z Lublina in a treatise of 1540. Volumes of bicinia were published in the next several decades in Germany, the Low Countries, and even in Italy, as the usefulness of bicinia as teaching aids became apparent. In addition, Martin Luther had strongly expressed that children should learn both music, and the psalms: bicinia with German texts from the Psalms fulfilled his purpose.

Students could be expected to master singing a single part in a duet more easily than a part in a larger ensemble. Usually a bicinium was designed to be sung or played by students of the same age and ability, rather than for a single student and a teacher.

This model of moving from two-part study, writing, and singing to three parts and then more was adopted by Heinrich Glarean in his Dodecachordon (1547), one of the most influential music theory and pedagogy treatises of the Renaissance.

In a similar manner, present-day music students typically learn counterpoint first by writing in two parts, and then later in three, only moving to four or more parts after mastering the earlier stages.

A similar pedagogical composition for three voices is known as a tricinium (pl. tricinia).

***

The kortholt is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. It was popular in the Renaissance period.

The name comes from the German kurz (becoming kort) meaning short and holz (becoming holt) meaning wood. This refers to the characteristic low sound that belies the short length of the instrument.

The kortholt is a capped reed instrument. Its construction is similar to that of the chanter of a bagpipe. A double reed is mounted inside a chamber. Blowing into the chamber produces a musical note. The pitch of the note can be varied by opening or closing finger and side holes along the length of the instrument.

The kortholt is actually double bored, similar to the modern bassoon. The cylindrical bore is doubled up inside the instrument producing a sound much lower than normally would be possible from an instrument of that length.

The sound is a similar to the crumhorn, but is softer. The kortholt came in various sizes, the most common being soprano, alto, tenor and bass. They could be played together in a consort.

[8500 Guillaume le Heurteur Kortholt]

Claudin de Sermsy (c. 1495-1562) - Consort

[Claudin de Sermsy's Jouissance vous donneray has gained a certain fame because of its place in musical iconography. There are four extant paintings, all by an anonymous painter active around 1525 known as the Master of the Female Half Lengths, depicting three female musicians. In each painting one woman is playing a flute, one is playing a lute, and one is singing, and in each picture it can be discerned that the music they are performing is Sermisy's Jouissance.]

Claudin de Sermsy (c. 1495-1562) - Chanson (Flutes)



Claudin de Sermsy [Sermisy] (c. 1490 – October 13, 1562) was a French composer of the Renaissance.

Along with Clément Janequin he was one of the most renowned composers of French chansons in the early 16th century; in addition he was a significant composer of sacred music. His music was both influential on, and influenced by, contemporary Italian styles.

Sermsy was most likely born either in Picardy, Burgundy, or Île-de-France, based on the similarity of his surname to place names there.

Sometime in his early life he may have studied with Josquin Desprez, if Pierre Ronsard is to be believed, but many musicologists consider the claim unreliable; at any rate he absorbed some of the older composer's musical ideas either early, or later, as he became acquainted with his music. Josquin was possibly at the French court between 1501 and about 1503, though this has never been definitely established, so a master-pupil relationship would have been possible then; Sermisy's whereabouts before 1508 are not known, but presence at the Royal Chapel was certainly possible.

In 1508 the young Sermsy was appointed as a singer in the Royal Chapel of Louis XII, where he was also a cleric.

His birthdate is inferred from the date he joined the royal chapel; 18 was about the right age for such an appointment. In 1515 he went to Italy with Francis I, and in 1520 he was part of the musical festivities arranged by Francis I and Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, directed by Jean Mouton, where he was almost certainly a singer.

He may have been a composer of some of the music there as well. In 1532 he also participated in the similar meeting between the kings at Boulogne, for which he wrote a ceremonial motet.

For a while in the early 1520s Sermsy was a canon at Notre-Dame-de-la-Rotonde in Rouen, but he left there in 1524 to take a similar position in Amiens. By 1532 he was music director of the Royal Chapel, still under Francis I, who reigned until 1547. At this post he was expected to teach and care for the boys of the choir, as well as find talented singers to recruit. In 1533, in addition to his post at the Royal Chapel, he became a canon at the Sainte-Chapelle, which would have required him to live in Paris. He acquired a large house there, large enough to shelter refugees from the church in St Quentin when the Spanish sacked their city in 1559. In 1554 he also was given a prebend at Ste Catherine in Troyes. Few biographical details are available about his last years, but he seems to have been active as a composer up to the end of his life based on publication dates of works. He was buried in the Sainte-Chapelle.

Sermsy wrote both sacred music and secular music, and all of it is for voices. Of his sacred music, 12 complete masses have survived, including a Requiem mass, as well as approximately 100 motets, some magnificats and a set of Lamentations. Unlike many of his contemporaries writing sacred music in France, there is no evidence he had any Huguenot sympathies; he seemed to remain a faithful Catholic all his life.

His interest in the sacred genres increased steadily throughout his life, corresponding to a decline in interest in secular forms, using the publication dates as a guide (actual dates on compositions are extremely difficult to establish for composers of this period, unless a work happened to be composed for a specific occasion). Since the prevailing style of polyphony among contemporary composers during his late career was dense, seamless, with pervasive imitation, as typified in the music of Mouton and Gombert, it is significant that he tended to avoid this style, preferring clearer textures and short phrases: a style more akin to the chansons he wrote earlier in his career. In addition he varied the texture in his composition by alternating polyphonic passages with homorhythmic, chordal ones, much like the texture found in his secular music.

Sermsy wrote one of the few polyphonic settings of the Passion (in this case following St. Matthew) found in French music of the period; the musical setting is simple, compared to his masses and motets, and he strove to make the words clearly understandable.

By far Sermsy's most famous contribution to music literature is his output of chansons, of which there are approximately 175. They are similar to those of Janequin, although less programmatic; his style in these works has also been described as more graceful and polished than that of the rival composer.

Typically Sermsy's chansons are chordal and syllabic, shunning the more ostentatious polyphony of composers from the Netherlands, striving for lightness and grace instead. Sermisy was fond of quick repeated notes, which give the texture an overall lightness and dance-like quality. Another stylistic trait seen in many of Sermisy's chansons is an initial rhythmic figure consisting of long-short-short (minim-crotchet-crotchet, or half-quarter-quarter), a figure which was to become the defining characteristic of the canzona later in the century.

The texts Sermsy chose were usually from contemporary poets, such as Clément Marot (he set more verse by Marot than any other composer). Typical topics were unrequited love, nature, and drinking. Several of his songs are on the topic of an unhappy young woman stuck with an unattractive and unvirile old man, a sentiment not unique to his age.

Most of his chansons are for four voices, though he wrote some for three early in has career, before four-voice writing became the norm. Influence from the Italian frottola is evident, and Sermisy's chansons themselves influenced Italian composers, since his music was reprinted numerous times both in France and in other parts of Europe.

Sermisy was well-known throughout western Europe, and copies of his music are found in Italy, Spain, Portugal, England and elsewhere. Rabelais mentioned him in Gargantua and Pantagruel (Book 4) along with several other contemporary composers. Sermisy's music was transcribed numerous times for instruments, including viols and lute as well as organ and other keyboard instruments, by performers from Italy, Germany, and Poland in addition to France. Even though Sermisy was a Catholic, many of his tunes were appropriated by Protestant musicians in the next generation: even a Lutheran chorale tune (Was mein Gott will) is based on a chanson by Sermsy.

Compositions

Chansons

Tant que vivray (publ. 1527)
Au joli bois
Si vous m'aimez
Auprés de vous (two parts)
Vive la serpe
Vignon, vignon, vignon, vignette
Si mon malheur my continue
Changeons propos, c'est trop chante d'amours
C'est une dure despartie
Au pre de vous secretement demeure
Content desir, qui cause ma douleur
Tu disais que j'en mourrais
En entrant en ung jardin (publ. 1529)

Motets

Languir me faits
Aspice, Domine



***


[A Consort of Renaissance Flutes]

A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble.

A consort may be "whole," that is, all instruments of the same family. For example, a set of viols played together would be considered a whole consort. A "broken" consort would consist of instruments from various families. For example, a broken consort could consist of viols and lute playing together. The term "broken consort" is of 20th century origin. It seems to derive from the term "broken music" referring to making divisions on a melody. The term consort in the 17th century referred to different instruments consorting together rather than a set of instruments of the same type.

Composers of consort music during the Elizabethan era include John Dowland, Anthony Holborne, and William Byrd. The principal Jacobean era composers included Thomas Lupo, Orlando Gibbons, John Coprario, and Alfonso Ferrabosco. Later 17th-century composers included Christopher Simpson, William Lawes, and Henry Purcell.

[8500 Heurteur - Kortholt / 8495 - Sermsy - Flutes / 8495 Sachs]

Jehan de l'Escurel (c. 1274-1304) - Formes Fixes

Poet-composer Jehan de Lescurel (also Jehannot de l'Escurel) (c. 1274 - May 23, 1304) was the son of a merchant in Paris, and probably studied at Notre Dame.

A transitional figure from the trouvères to the ars nova, his lyrical style unites him later composers, and they clearly thought enough of him to include his music in the same manuscript which preserves the Roman de Fauvel.

Aside from one polyphonic composition, all of his 34 surviving works are trouvere-like monophonic songs.

His works include

Ballades [Music at the Time of the Crusades]




Chansons, such as "Jolivete et bone amor," performed in David Munrow's Instruments of the Medieval and Renaissance on the Hurdy-Gurdy





Virelais, such as "Gracieusette" (IMR on Double Pipes)




and Rondeaux.

His lyrics include word-painting more in the style of later 1300's composers, and are simple and charming.

While debauchery is not a prominent theme in his works, he was hanged for such, along with three other young clerics of Notre Dame (including Oudinet Pisdoé), for "crimes against women"!

On the other hand, recent research suggests that "Jehan de Lescurel" was a rather common name in early 1300's Paris, and that there may be no real link between Jehan de Lescurel, the composer, and Jehan de Lescurel, the dangler.

***

Formes fixes (English: fixed forms) are French poetic forms of the 1300's and 1400's which were translated into musical forms, particularly the forms of songs. Specifically, these forms were the ballade, rondeau, and virelai. These forms all consist of a complex pattern of repetition of verses and a refrain, with the musical content in two main sections. The first comprehensive repertory of these forms was written by Guillaume de Machaut.

The formes fixes stopped being used literally in music around the end of the 1400's, although their influence continued, and the poetic forms continued to be used by poets, especially the rondeau.

Sometimes forms from other countries and periods are referred to as formes fixes. These include the Italian 14th-century madrigal and later ballata and barzelletta, the German bar form, Spanish 13th-century cantiga, and the later canción, and villancico.

***

The ballade (ot to be confused with the ballad) is a verse form typically consisting of three eight-line stanzas, each with a consistent metre and a particular rhyme scheme. The last line in the stanza is a refrain, and the stanzas are followed by a four-line concluding stanza (an envoi) usually addressed to a prince. The rhyme scheme is therefore usually 'ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC', where the capital 'C' is a refrain.

The ballade is particularly associated with French poetry of the 14th and 15th centuries. One of the most notable writers of ballades was François Villon. In Edmund Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac (play), it is a ballade that Cyrano composes impromptu during a duel.

The many different rhyming words that are needed (the 'b' rhyme needs at least fourteen words) makes the form more difficult for English poets than for French. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the form. It was revived in the 19th century by English-language poets including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Algernon Charles Swinburne. O

There are many variations to the ballade, and it is in many ways similar to the ode and chant royal. There are instances of a double ballade and double-refrain ballade. Some ballades have five stanzas; a ballade supreme has ten-line stanzas rhyming ababbccdcD, with the envoi ccdcD or ccdccD. An example is Ballade des Pendus by François Villon.

A seven-line ballade, or ballade royal, consists of four stanzas of rhyme royal, all using the same three rhymes, all ending in a refrain, without an envoi.


***



A hurdy gurdy (also known as a "wheel fiddle") is a stringed musical instrument in which the strings are sounded by means of a rosined wheel which the strings of the instrument pass over. This wheel, turned with a crank, functions much like a violin bow, making the instrument essentially a mechanical violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that presses tangents (small wedges, usually made of wood) against one or more of these strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic string instruments, it has a soundboard to make the vibration of the strings audible.

Most hurdy gurdies have multiple "drone strings" which provide a constant pitch accompaniment to the melody, resulting in a sound similar to that of bagpipes. For this reason, the hurdy gurdy is often used interchangeably with or along with bagpipes, particularly in French and contemporary Hungarian folk music.

Many folk music festivals in Europe feature music groups with hurdy gurdy players, but the most famous annual festival is at Saint-Chartier, in the Indre département, in central France, during the week nearest July 14 (Bastille Day).

The hurdy gurdy is thought to have originated in Western Europe some time prior to A.D. 1000, being a genuine European invention. One of the earliest forms of the hurdy gurdy was the organistrum, a large instrument with a guitar-shaped body and a long neck in which the keys were set (covering one diatonic octave). The organistrum had a single melody string and two drone strings which ran over a common bridge and a relatively small wheel. Due to its size, the organistrum was played by two people, one of whom turned the crank while the other pulled the keys upward. Pulling keys upward is a cumbersome playing technique, and as a result only slow tunes could be played on the organistrum.

The pitches on the organistrum were set according to Pythagorean temperament and the instrument was primarily used in monastic and church settings to accompany choral music.



The abbot Odo (878-942) of



Cluny is supposed to have written a short description of the construction of the organistrum entitled Quomodo organistrum construatur (How the Organistrum Is Made), known through a much-later copy, but its authenticity is very doubtful. One of the earliest visual depictions of the organistrum is from the twelfth-century Pórtico de la Gloria (Portal of Glory) on the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain, which includes a carving of two musicians playing an organistrum [above at Chanson].

Later on the organistrum was reduced in size to allow a single player to both turn the crank and manipulate the keys. The solo organistrum was known from Spain and France, but was largely replaced by the symphonia, a small box-shaped version of the hurdy gurdy with three strings and a diatonic keyboard. At about the same time as the symphonia was developed, a new form of key pressed from beneath were developed. These keys were much more practical in faster music and easier to handle and eventually completely replaced keys pulled up from above. Medieval depictions of the symphonia show both types of keys.

During the Renaissance, the hurdy gurdy was a very popular instrument, along with the bagpipe, and a characteristic form with a short neck and a boxy body with a curved tail end developed. It was about this time that buzzing bridges first appear in depictions of the instrument. The buzzing bridge (commonly called the dog) is an asymmetrical bridge that rests under a drone string on the sound board. When the wheel is accelerated, one foot of the bridge lifts up from the soundboard and vibrates, creating a buzzing sound. The buzzing bridge is thought to have been borrowed from the tromba marina (monochord), a bowed string instrument.

During the late Renaissance, two characteristic shapes of hurdy gurdies developed. The first was guitar-shaped and the second had a rounded lute-type body made of staves. The lute body is especially characteristic of French instruments.



Detail of



The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, showing the first known depiction of a buzzing bridge on a hurdy gurdy [and check out the crucified nude harpist!, etc., etc....]

By the end of the 17th century changing musical tastes that demanded greater polyphonic capabilities than the hurdy gurdy could offer had pushed the instrument to the lowest social classes; as a result it acquired names like the German Bauernleier ‘peasant’s lyre’ and Bettlerleier ‘beggar’s lyre.’ During the 18th century, however, French Rococo tastes for rustic diversions brought the hurdy gurdy back to the attention of the upper classes, where it acquired tremendous popularity among the nobility, with famous composers writing works for the hurdy gurdy (the most famous of which is Vivaldi’s Il pastor Fido). At this time the most common style of hurdy gurdy developed, the six-string vielle à roue. This instrument has two melody strings and four drones tuned such that by turning drones on or off, the instrument can be played in multiple keys (e.g., C and G or G and D).

During this time the hurdy gurdy also spread further east, where further variations developed in western Slavic countries, German-speaking areas and Hungary (see the list of types below for more information on these). Most types of hurdy gurdy were essentially extinct by the early twentieth century, but a few sorts have survived to the present day, the best-known of which are the French vielle à roue, the Hungarian tekerőlant, and the Spanish zanfona. In Ukraine, a variety called the lira was widely used by blind street musicians, most of whom were purged by Stalin in the 1930s. Revivals have been underway for many years in Sweden, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Italy, and Portugal. The revival of hurdy gurdies has resulted in the instrument’s use in a variety of styles of music (see the list of recordings that use hurdy gurdy), including contemporary forms not typically associated with the hurdy gurdy.

In the eighteenth century the term hurdy gurdy was also applied to a small, portable "barrel organ" (a cranked box instrument with a number of organ pipes, a bellows and a barrel with pins that rotated and programmed the tunes) that was frequently played by poor buskers (street musicians). Barrel organs require only the turning of the crank, and the music is played automatically by pinned barrels, perforated paper rolls, and more recently by electronic modules.

This confusion over what the name hurdy gurdy means is particular to English, although similar confusion over other terms for the instrument occurs in German and Hungarian due to unfamiliarity with the hurdy gurdy. The French call the barrel organ the Orgue de Barbarie ("Barbary organ"), and the Germans Drehorgel ("turned organ"), instead of Drehleier ("turning lyre").

The hurdy-gurdy has a well developed tradition in Eastern Europe, in particular in Hungary, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. In Ukraine it is known as the lira or relia was played by professional, often blind, itinerant musicians known as lirnyky. Their repertoire was primarily para-religious in theme, although it included many historic epics known as Dumy and folk dances.

A person who plays the hurdy gurdy is called a hurdy gurdyist, hurdy gurdy player, or (particularly for players of French instruments) viellist.

Due to the prominence of the French tradition, many instrument and performance terms used in English are commonly taken from the French, and players generally need to know these terms to read relevant literature. Such common terms include the following:

trompette: the highest-pitched drone string that features the buzzing bridge
mouche: the drone string pitched a fourth or fifth below the trompette
petit bourdon: the drone string pitched an octave below the trompette
gros bourdon: the drone string pitched an octave below the mouche
chanterelle(s): melody string(s), also called chanters or chanter strings in English
chien: (literally "dog"), the buzzing bridge
tirant: a small peg set in the instrument’s tailpiece that is used to control the sensitivity of the buzzing bridge

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the origin of the term hurdy gurdy is onomatopoetic in origin, after the repetitive warble in pitch that characterizes instruments with solid wooden wheels that have warped due to changes in humidity or after the sound of the buzzing-bridge.

Some have suggested other origins for the term, including the following folk etymology:
hurdy = a person's backside + gurdy = a reel with a crank, used to reel in fishing nets on a boat. This pejorative name was applied to the French instrument in England, during the eighteenth century.

(There are a number of problems with this putative etymology. Among them are (1) hurdy is not known as an English term, and (2) the term for the crank (hurdy gurdy, not gurdy) was first recorded in 1883, based on the term for the instrument.)

The instrument is sometimes more descriptively called a wheel fiddle in English, but this term is not in general use among players of the instrument. The Hungarian name tekerőlant and the alternate forgólant both mean "turning lute." An alternate German name, Bauernleier, means "peasant's lyre."

***

A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes (the others were the ballade and the rondeau), and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late 13th to the 15th centuries.
A virelai is similar to a rondeau. Each stanza has two rhymes, the end rhyme recurring as the first rhyme of the following stanza. The overall musical structure is almost invariably ABbaA, with the first and last sections having the same lyrics; this is the same form as the Italian ballata. The first stanza is known as the estribillo, the next two as mudanzas, and the fourth as the vuelta.

One of the most famous composers of virelai is Guillaume de Machaut (1300–1377), who also wrote his own verse; 33 separate compositions in the form survive by him. Other composers of virelai include Jehannot de l'Escurel, one of the earliest (d. 1304), and Guillaume Dufay (c.1400–1474), one of the last.

By the mid-15th century, the form had become largely divorced from music, and numerous examples of this form (as well as the ballade and the rondeau) were written, which were either not intended to be set to music, or for which the music has not survived.

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A poetic rondeau (plural rondeaux) is a form of French poetry with 15 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure. It was one of the three formes fixes (the other two were the ballade and the virelai), and one of the verse forms in France most commonly set to music between the late 13th and the 15th centuries. Variant forms may have 10 or 13 lines. The English variant called Roundel was devised by the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne.

The rondeau is a form of verse also used in English language poetry. It makes use of refrains, repeated according to a certain stylized pattern. It was customarily regarded as a challenge to arrange for these refrains to contribute to the meaning of the poem in as succinct and poignant a manner as possible. The rondeau consists of thirteen lines of eight syllables, plus two refrains (which are half lines, each of four syllables), employing, altogether, only three rhymes. It has three stanzas (of 5, 4, and 6 lines) and its rhyme scheme is as follows: (1) A A B B A (2) A A B with refrain: C (3) A A B B A with concluding refrain C. The refrain must be identical with the beginning of the first line.

An example is We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar:

We wear the mask that grins and lies, (A)
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— (A)
This debt we pay to human guile; (B)
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, (B)
And mouth with myriad subtleties. (A)

Why should the world be over-wise, (A)
In counting all our tears and sighs? (A)
Nay, let them only see us, while (B)
We wear the mask. (C)

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries (A)
To thee from tortured souls arise. (A)
We sing, but oh the clay is vile (B)
Beneath our feet, and long the mile; (B)
But let the world dream otherwise, (A)
We wear the mask! (C)

Perhaps the best-known rondeau is the following World War I poem, In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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The musical rondeau (French; plural form rondeaux) was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on a popular contemporary poetic form (see rondeau (poetry)). It is distinct from the 18th century rondo, though the terms are likely related. With the virelai and the ballade, it is one of the three formes fixes of French music and poetry in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The rondeau form calls for a rigid pattern of repetition of verse and refrain, following the evolving rhyme-scheme of the poetic form, ranging from eight lines to as many as 21. The most commonly used form is ABaAabAB, where capital letters refer to repetition of the (two-part) refrain text and music while lowercase letters refer to repetition of music alone with a new text. Early rondeaux are usually found as interpolations in longer narrative poems, and separate monophonic musical settings survive. While early poetic rondeaux are often in mixed meter, this is rare in later rondeaux set to music.

The earliest surviving polyphonic rondeaux are by the trouvère Adam de la Halle. Later, Guillaume de Machaut, Guillaume Dufay and other prominent composers were prolific in the form.

Although far rarer than the French usage, the Italian equivalent, the rondello was occasionally composed and listed among the Italian forms of poetry for music. A single rondello appears in the Rossi Codex. In addition, several rondeaux in French appear entirely in sources originating in Italy, the Low Countries, and Germany, suggesting that these works (including Esperance, qui en mon cuer) may not have a purely French provenance.

Later, in the Baroque era, the label rondeau (or the adjectival phrase en rendeau) was applied to dance movements in simple refrain form by such composers as Jean-Baptiste Lully and Louis Couperin.

Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire sets 21 poems by Albert Giraud, each of which is a 13-lined poetic rondeau.

[8280 Sumer / 8274 Jehan de l'Escurel Formes Fixes / 8270 Worcester]

Thibaut de Blason (c. 1182-1230) - Mandora

Thibaut de Blason (c. 1182-1230) - Chanson "Amours que porra" (Mandora)



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[Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) - Odalisque and Slave]

The term "Blason" originally comes from French Heraldry and means either the codified description of a coat of arms or the coat of arms itself. The terms "blason," "blasonner," "blasonneur" were used in 16th-century French literature by poets who, following Clement Marot in 1536, practised a genre of poems that praised a woman by singling out different parts of her body and finding appropriate metaphors to compare them with. It is still being used with that meaning in literature and especially in poetry. One famous example of such a poem, ironically rejecting each proposed stock metaphor, is William Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXX.

Blason populaire is a phrase in which one culture or ethnic group increases its own self-esteem by belittling others eg. Samuel Johnson's description that "The noblest prospect which a Scotsman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!"

The term originated from Auguste Canel's travelogue Blason Populaire de la Normandie (1859), in which people from Normandy boasted about themselves while sneering at other regions.

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The mandora or mandore, also known as the gallizona or gallichon, is a type of 6 or 8-course bass lute (possibly a descendant of guiterne and/or chitarra italiana) used mainly for basso continuo, in Germany, Austria and Bohemia, particularly during the 18th and early 19th centuries.

The Mandora is often mistaken for Mandore, a small 16th- and 17th-century French type of a lute, or mandola.

The construction of the mandora is similar to other baroque lutes. It has a vaulted body (shell) constructed of separate ribs, a flat soundboard with either a carved rose or one which is inset into the soundhole, and a bridge (without a saddle) consisting of a wooden bar acting as a string-holder glued to the soundboard. Unique to this instrument is the neck, which is long enough to allow for ten to 12 tied gut frets. The pegbox is either straight and set at a sharp angle to the neck (much like a lute pegbox), or gently curving and set at a shallow angle, either case being fitted with laterally-inserted tuning pegs (although sometimes a flat pegboard with sagittal pegs is found). The strings were of gut (now replaced by such sustitutes as nylon) and are strung either singly or, especially on Italian instruments, in double courses. However, on German-made instruments, the first course (highest in pitch) is usually single (a chanterelle) and often has its own separate raised peg rider/holder attached to the pegbox. The number of courses varies from six to eight. Open string lengths tend to be fairly long (62–72 cm) on German instruments, but shorter (55–65 cm) on late Italian ones, probably because they tended to be tuned to a higher pitch.

At least 50 original instruments survive in collections around the world. Many of these instruments are found in a more or less unaltered state, and therefore are often used as models for modern reconstructions. Examples are found in museums in Berlin, Claremont, California, Copenhagen, Edinburgh, The Hague, Leipzig, Milan, Munich and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg.

The luthiers who produced Mandoras were Gregor Ferdinand Wenger in Augsburg, Jacob Goldt of Hamburg, Jacob Weiss of Salzburg, David Buchstetter of Regensburg and Mattias Greisser of Innsbruck, all dating from the first half of the 18th century. Italian-style instruments are represented by Martino Hell of Genoa, Enrico Ebar of Venice, David Tecchler of Rome, Antonio Scoti of Milan and, toward the end of the century, Antonio Monzino and Giuseppe Presbler of Milan.

Two tuning's are reported: a ‘galizona’ or ‘colachon’ is tuned A'( or ) –B'( or ) –C–D–G–c–e–a, and, under a separate heading, ‘mandora’ is given as D ( or ) –E ( or ) –F–G–c–f–a–d' (i.e. the same tuning but a 4th higher). or )-E–A–d–g–b–e' (identical to that of the modern guitar)

The playing technique for the mandora involves the same basic right-hand finger style as for all 18th-century lutes and, because of the tuning intervals of the upper five courses, a left-hand technique that is similar to that of the 18th-century guitar.

There are about 55 sources of mandora music in tablature, all in manuscript (none printed) and nearly all of Germanic origin. These manuscripts contain solos, duets, song accompaniments, and chamber music. Few studies of these manuscript sources have appeared, and very little of the music has been transcribed and published despite its quality. Critical editions are especially rare. Many sources have no composer attributions, but in recent years a many studies of concordances are beginning to uncover music by composers such as S.L. Weiss and Johann Anton Logy. The sources do mention some composers names such as Duke Clement of Bavaria, Placidus von Camerloher, Johann Paul Schiffelholz, J.M. Zink, Andrea Mayr, G.A. Brescianello and others. Other composers include J.F. Daube and Johann Albrechtsberger, whose three concertinos for ‘mandora’, ‘crembalum’ (Jew's harp) and strings has been performed and recorded.

[8200 Kallawaya Boliva / 8182 Thibaut de Blason / 8180 Neidhardt]