La Quinte Estampie Real - Estampies & Danses Royales

Details

Description

Estampies & Danses Royales
Le Manucsrit du Roi
ca. 1270 - 1320 CE
Hesperion XXI
Jordi Savall

Instruments:
-Cornemuse
-Flûte
-Vièle à archet
-Dulcimer
-Psalterium
-Chalemies
-Doira
-Daff

"The tunes on this disc survive only in one of the most famous and grandest of thirteenth-century songbooks, the so-called 'Chansonnier du Roi', carrying that name today because it gives a special prominence to the songs of King Thibaut IV of Navarre (ca. 1201 - 1253 CE). It is a large book of over 200 parchment leaves, each about the size of a piece of copyright paper today (that is, 32 x 22 cm). Much of it is expensively copied and decorated, but it has a rich and complex history: additions, resequencing, later annotations, and much else make its origins and changes hard to trace. It seems to have started as a collection of monophonic songs in French, what we call the 'trouvère repertory; then various other items were added, including a group of polyphonic motets. As concerns the songs that make up the 'chansonnier' , there are over 400 of them and they are copied mainly for their long and elaborate texts. The dances heard on this disc seem to have been added very late in its history, perhaps in the early fourteenth century. They are the work of at least two additional copyists, evidently something of an afterthought. But the 'estampies' are numbered in the manuscript, and there may be reasons for thinking that they were planned as a cycle: after all, their formal design is very reminiscent of the 'lai' of the time, an extremely long song form that had up to twelve stanzas, all with different music but all with the 'open' and 'closed' endings we find with these little 'estampies'."

Featured Image:
Jean Cuvelier, La chanson de Bertrand du Guesclin - Surprise at Forgeray
British Library

I do not own the rights to this song.