Robert de Reims: Songs and Motets - Softcover

Robert De Reims

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0271087188 ISBN 13: 9780271087184

Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020

Synopsis

Robert de Reims, also known as "La Chievre de Rains," was among the earliest trouveres-poet-composers who were contemporaries of the troubadours but who wrote in the dialects of northern France. This critical edition provides new translations into English and modern French of all the songs and motets ascribed to him, along with the original texts, the extant music, and a substantive introduction. Active sometime between 1190 and 1220, Robert was an influential figure in the literary circles of Arras. Thirteen compositions set to music are here attributed to him, including nine chansons and four polyphonic motets that were broadly disseminated in the thirteenth century and beyond. Robert's work is exceptional on a number of fronts. He lavished particular care on the phonic harmony of his words. Acoustic luxuriance and expertise in rhyming, grounded in the play of echoes and variation (often extending into the music), constitute the hallmark of his poetry. Moreover, he is the earliest trouvere known to have composed a parodic sotte chanson contre Amours (silly song against Love). Located clearly at the nexus of monophonic song and polyphony, Robert's corpus also poses the intriguing question of trouvere participation in the development of the polyphonic repertory. The case of Robert de Reims jostles and tempers the standard history of the chanson and motet. Accessible and instructive, this trilingual critical edition of his complete works makes the oeuvre of this innovative and consequential trouvere available in one volume for the first time.

About this title

About the Author

Eglal Doss-Quinby is a translator and literary scholar specializing in Old French songs and motets. She is Professor of French Studies at Smith College. Gael Saint-Cricq is a music scholar specializing in polyphony and song in the long thirteenth century. He is Maitre de conferences at the Universite de Rouen. Samuel N. Rosenberg was a literary scholar and translator of French poetry of the Middle Ages and the nineteenth century. He was Professor Emeritus of French at Indiana University and the translator of Robert the Devil and Paul Verlaine: A Bilingual Selection of His Verse, both published by Penn State University Press.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0271087188
• ISBN 13: 9780271087184
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160