Gilles Binchois

In the late Middle Ages, melancholy was often regarded as a pathological disease to which music provided the cure; music, by its very nature, being exhilarating and of a convivial nature. Even Marsilio Ficino, who almost single-handedly re-evaluated the state of melancholy as being the sign of a great genius, used music only to soften his melancholic mind, not to conjure melancholy up. But in the literary and musical practice of the French chanson during the 15th century, melancholy was regarded as a kind of "dolorous joy" long before Ficino published his influential treatises - and music served as a means of the first importance to cultivate (and relish) one’s own melancholy. This is shown by a discussion of texts by Guillaume de Machaut, Alain Chartier, Jean Froissart or René d’Anjou, but primarily through an analysis of some of the most important chansons of the 15th and early 16th century: Gilles Binchois’ "Tristre plaisir" (on a text by Alain Chartier); Pierre de la Rue’s "Pourquoy non" and Josquin Desprez’ "Plaine de deuil" and "Nimphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me". Not only the texts by themselves but the specific ways in which their musical settings "tune" them, give voice(s) to their lyrical subjects, are analysed in various ways.

In this paper I explore musical works built on Gilles Binchois' chanson Comme femme desconfortée. I propose that these works, read as a corpus, show an effort to communicate Mary’s suffering for the absence of her son, as expressed through the placement of these musical compositions in the liturgical calendar and through their ritual use. I propose that the new Marian celebrations, along with the music, visual art, and paraliturgical literature which accompanied them, were part of a seemingly systematic effort designed to provide a sense of “humanity,” or “earthliness,” to the Virgin Mary and to Christ himself. They were, furthermore, inspired to an extraordinary detail by the vitae compiled by Voragine. I employ the concept of semantic polyphony as an analytical point of departure in order to uncover and explore layers of meaning in works of art dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows, particularly in the music, visual art, and moralités inspired by or composed on the secular chanson Comme femme desconfortée, by Gilles Binchois (ca. 1400-1460). I will present the polyphonic setting of the Stabat Mater by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin de Prez (ca. 1440-1521) as prime example of the use of secular imagery in an effort to “humanize” the Virgin Mother, paradoxically reinforcing her sainthood.

In the late 14th and early 15th centuries, an important tradition on musical borrowing was consolidated in Europe, becoming a key element in the development of compositional processes. In this work, a Binchois' chanson is compared with tenors in Isaac's works by means of cadential analysis, indicating a faithful relation between cadence patterns in the beginning and ending of each tenor fragment in a mass and a motet paraphrased from the chanson. A new terminology, the "Variant" cadence, is suggested for cadential analysis purposes.

First given as a paper at The Idea of the Renaissance in Our Time, National Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Duke University, USA, 11 April 1991, and subsequently at the Twenty-second Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Glasgow, UK, 11 July 1994.