# A post about French Chanson



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

It's probably what i preffered from renaissance,dont know about you guys but have you heard the incredible naxos of same name genra, simply called French Chanson or Fricassé Parisienne, Amorosi Pensieri, La Fontegara , Anthologie de la chanson française BnF recording(look i knoww it's old , but it's a holy graal of music if your looking for french chanson.

Sometime i listen to religieous music but i really appreciated secular songs.I have a couple more french chanson printed by Ronsard, a fameous printers of French chanson. As far as surrealist song writting Guilaume de Costeley and Clement Jannequin deserve Honnorable mention.I could site Claudin and Sermisy too...


:tiphat:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Some of these songs from the early renaissance may not be as secular as they look. L'homme armé, for example, may be a religious song -- it was an age of metaphor.

I'm going to see this tonight

http://www.bouffesdunord.com/fr/calendrier/heptameron


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Some of these songs from the early renaissance may not be as secular as they look. L'homme armé, for example, may be a religious song -- it was an age of metaphor.


I see no evidence for this. L'homme armé (or its melody rather) was employed for mass settings, but the song itself is a secular song. 
I would suggest that, on the contrary, many religious songs and settings are probably not that religious; either in origin or entirely. It was after all an age of metaphor.


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## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

eugeneonagain said:


> I see no evidence for this. L'homme armé (or its melody rather) was employed for mass settings, but the song itself is a secular song.
> I would suggest that, on the contrary, many religious songs and settings are probably not that religious; either in origin or entirely. It was after all an age of metaphor.


I agree to the following, Look at the superbe album: La bataille d'amour, dosen't seem secular, but once again depend on a composer occupation, if he a monk, but i guess even monks wrote secular songs.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Though historians are unable to discern exactly from whence the melody originated, Andrew Kirkman in his “The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass: Medieval Context to Modern Revival” suggests that it is likely that the l’homme armé tune has an early connection with the fifteenth-century Burgundian court. More specifically, it was probably linked to the Order of the Golden Fleece, founded in 1430 under Philip the Good of Burgundy (reigned 1419-1467), and the Burgundian call for another crusade in the 1450s, shortly after Mohammed II conquered Constantinople. Numerical patterns within the l’homme armé melody seem to relate it to the historical context of the Order of the Golden Fleece, such as the fact that the melody is in units of thirty one and the Order had thirty-one knights. Relating music patterns to numerical patterns to represent a deeper hidden meaning was a popular compositional technique of the time. 

According to Du Fay scholar Alejandro Planchart, it was likely a composed work (art song) directly written for the Order of the Golden Fleece to mock the Turks, and it was only later used as a cantus firmus for a mass for the Order. This means that the tune was never without some sacred connotation, although the sacred meaning would certainly have been less direct before it was worked into the mass. As noted by Kirkman, a correlating theory to this conclusion is the belief that the “armed man” of the song is Christ Himself. Although the theory that the song was written along with the call for a crusade contradicts the beliefs of other musicologists who posit that the tune was written separately and later incorporated into the mass, both theories posit that the link between the sacred and secular, the holy mass and the pop song, was the crusades: the holy war to free Jerusalem fought by fearsome (and often quite secular) knights. Thus the l’homme armé mass was simply one small example of the already blurred lines between sacred and secular during the time of the medieval Holy Wars.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> According to Du Fay scholar Alejandro Planchart, it was likely a composed work (art song) directly written for the Order of the Golden Fleece to mock the Turks, and it was only later used as a cantus firmus for a mass for the Order. *This means that the tune was never without some sacred connotation*, although the sacred meaning would certainly have been less direct before it was worked into the mass. As noted by Kirkman, a correlating theory to this conclusion is the belief that the "armed man" of the song is Christ Himself. Although the theory that the song was written along with the call for a crusade contradicts the beliefs of other musicologists who posit that the tune was written separately and later incorporated into the mass, both theories posit that the link between the sacred and secular, the holy mass and the pop song, was the crusades: the holy war to free Jerusalem fought by fearsome (and often quite secular) knights. Thus the l'homme armé mass was simply one small example of the already blurred lines between sacred and secular during the time of the medieval Holy Wars.


This seems eminently reasonable, since religion had such cultural force at the time. To entirely be disentangled from religious connotations would have been difficult. There is however plenty of evidence of folk song and other non-religious art-music dealing with mainly earthly matters: social life, matters of the heart, traditions and mythology. All of which can be put to service in other ways.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It's not easy for me to post now, but one thing to look at is how the words of the chanson fit the music much better than the mass text in the Ockeghem, I think the problem is in the Credo, but I may be misremembering. Similar issues in the Faugues L'homme Armé. Don't forget the text and music isn't aligned like in a modern score. I can post a bit more on this tomorrow maybe.

The porosity of sacred and secular is a big aspect of what's going on in Machaut motets I think.


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