Solage (fl. late 14th century; or Soulage), possibly Jean So(u)lage, was a French composer, and probably also a poet. He composed the most pieces in the Chantilly Codex, the principal source of music of the ars subtilior, the manneristic compositional school centered on Avignon at the end of the century.

Life

Nothing is known about Solage's life, beyond what can be inferred from the texts to his music. Even his name is a puzzle. One possibility is that the single name "Solage" is a nickname or pseudonym, similar to others known from the period, such as Grimace or Hasprois.[1] "Solage" and "soulage" are variant spellings of Old French solaz, solace, meaning "consolation", "joy", or "entertainment".[2] In the refrain to the text of Calextone qui fut dame, the composer refers to himself with such a double meaning, using the spelling "soulage".[3] However, the possibility that it is a genuine name cannot be ruled out. One of the attributions in the Chantilly Codex includes the initial J wrapped into the name, so it is possible his first name was Je(h)an. There are many references from that time to people called Jean Soulas (a name still found in modern times), and the surname Soulage or Soulages also existed (for example, Guillaume de Soulages, count of Canillac, documented from a wedding in 1392), though there are no clear candidates for the composer.[4] Gilbert Reaney's suggestion that the composer's first name might have been Charles rested on a speculative identification of Solage with another composer found in the Chantilly Codex, Goscalch, "a rather German-sounding name" that might be an anagram of "Ch. Solag(e)".[5] However, Reaney's claim that the name occurs nowhere apart from the Chantilly Codex has been proven wrong, as several other identifications have been found, and the possible identity of the two composers has been rejected.[6]

Specific references in the texts of some of his songs indicate he probably was associated with the French royal court.[7] The ballade S'aincy estoit glorifies Jean, duc de Berry, and was written to celebrate his second marriage, to Jeanne de Boulogne, which took place with great pomp near Avignon on 25 May 1389. The pair of ballades, Corps femenin par vertu de nature and Calextone qui fut dame also refer to Jeanne de Boulogne, and their texts show that the former was composed shortly before and the latter shortly after this wedding. Although it is tempting to suppose that Solage might have been in the service of the duke of Berry, it is just as likely that he was in the service of Gaston Fébus, compte de Foix, who had a considerable financial interest in this marriage.[8]

There is also a possible connection to, or at least an indication of some cultural exchange with the court of Giangaleazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan, in the text of Solage's virelai, Joieux de Cuer. The Visconti family motto, "'a bon droit", is prominently placed at the beginning of the ninth line, at the beginning of the reprise of the first musical section, and just before the return of the refrain. Although Giangaleazzo died in 1402, his daughter Valentina continued to employ the motto until her death in 1408.[3] In his chanson Pluseurs gens Solage mentioned Jacqueline, the granddaughter of Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, who was born in 1401 and betrothed in 1403. The association with Jacqueline is conjectural, however, since the name actually found in Pluseurs gens is "Jaquete".[7]

Poetry

Because the texts of Solage's songs are found only in his musical settings, and because they show amongst them kindred turns of phrase as well as syntactic and lexical preferences that lend a sense of unity, it is probable that he wrote the words as well as the music. Other composers represented in the Chantilly Codex were also likely poet-composers, in particular Jacob Senleches.[9]

One especially plain example of textual interrelationships concerns the two ballades Corps femenin and Calextone qui fut. The former is based on the acrostic CATHELLINE LA ROYNE DAMOURS, and the latter begins with what could be the same acrostic, CATHELLI ..., but the second and third stanzas of this ballade are not preserved.[10] There are no other surviving examples of such twin ballades in the literature of this period.[11]

Music

MIDI sequence of Fumeux fume par fumee

Stylistically, Solage's works exhibit two distinctly different characters: a relatively simple one usually associated with his great predecessor and elder contemporary Guillaume de Machaut, and a more recherché one, complex in the areas of both pitch and rhythm, characteristic of the ars subtilior ("more subtle art"). These two styles mostly exist separately in different songs but sometimes are found mixed in a single composition, where they can be used to underscore the musical and poetic structure. In his simpler "Machaut" style pieces Solage nevertheless makes many personal choices that are very different from what Machaut typically does. Moreover, the simpler style is not necessarily an indication of an earlier date nor the complex style a reliable sign of a later date. Solage uses his techniques to link text and music together, either in terms of form or else of meaning.[12] Nevertheless, some of his ars subtilior music was quite experimental: the best-known example in this complex style is his bizarre Fumeux fume par fumée (approx: "The smoky one smokes through [or for] smoke"), which is extravagantly chromatic for the time; it also contains some of the lowest tessitura vocal writing in any music of the period.[7][13][n 1]

Solage's rondeau is associated with a putative literary school of fumeurs. There have been many interpretations of this sobriquet. Although it is tempting given the outré nature of some poems to suppose that it refers to the smoking of some drug, the simplest explanation in the case of the above work is that it was written for the Parisian Fumeurs, the Society of Smokers, "an eccentric literary clique of ostentatiously dressed bohemians that named themselves after Jean Fumeux and flourished in the 1360s and 1370s".[14][better source needed] One scholar suggests that Eustache Deschamps's poetry, which contains most of the surviving references to the fumeurs, was satirical.[15] The literature associated with the Fumeurs is dated between 1366 and 1381, and Solage's ballade Plusieurs gens voy also alludes to them.[10] In his Règles de la seconde rhétorique Deschamps claims to be the nephew of Machaut, and in his Ballade 447 states that Machaut "brought me up and did me many kindnesses". Though there is no independent verification of these claims, it seems likely that they must have been on close terms.[16] On the other hand, if indeed the Fumeurs were literally devotees of smoking, since tobacco was not known in Europe for another two centuries, some other drug, e.g. hashish or opium, must have been implied. However, the current consensus among musicologists is that there was no physical smoking.[15] In the Middle Ages, the French expression "avoir des fumées au cerveau" (having smoke in the brain) referred to mental confusion, a condition attributed to internal vapours which, according to ancient authorities such as Hippocrates and Aristotle, could be evacuated from "heated and smoky brains" either by sneezing or by drinking. Similarly, drinking in the morning was referred to as "abattre le brouillard"—"breaking up the fog".[17]

Works

All of Solage's known compositions are found in the Chantilly Codex, and only one of these is found anywhere else. This is the four-voiced ballade Pluseurs gens voy qui leur pensee, which was obviously copied from Chantilly into the important Florentine manuscript Florence, Bibl. Nazionale, Panciatichi 26, only without its text and lacking identification of its composer (Dulong 2009, p. 45; Reaney 1954, pp. 69, 76, 94). Only ten works are inscribed with Solage's name in the Chantilly Codex (one of them, Tres gentil cuer, is found there twice), but two more can be attributed to him on stylistic grounds.[7] One of these, Le mont Aôn de Trace, is also found in the same Florence manuscript with Pluseurs gens voy.[18] These twelve works consist of 9 ballades, 2 virelais and a rondeau:

Anonymous in the source, but attributable on stylistic grounds:

All of Solage's works have been recorded by Gothic Voices on the Avie Records label.

Recordings

Notes

  1. ^ Another rare example of low tessitura writing in this time can be found in Jacob Senleches's Fuions de ci.[13]

References

  1. ^ Leach 2007, p. 106.
  2. ^ Greimas 1982, p. 602.
  3. ^ a b Plumley 2004, p. 13.
  4. ^ Plumley 2003, p. 128.
  5. ^ Reaney 1954, p. 70.
  6. ^ Günther 2001.
  7. ^ a b c d Plumley 2009.
  8. ^ Reaney 1954, pp. 76–77.
  9. ^ Dulong 2009, pp. 46, 48, 61.
  10. ^ a b Gombosi 1950, p. 606.
  11. ^ Dulong 2009, p. 47.
  12. ^ Dulong 2009, p. 46.
  13. ^ a b Wilkins 1979, p. 33.
  14. ^ Anon. n.d.
  15. ^ a b McComb n.d.
  16. ^ Page 1977, p. 484.
  17. ^ Lindfors-Nordin 1938, p. 185–86.
  18. ^ Dulong 2009, p. 45.

Sources

  • Anon. n.d. Solage (Late 14th Century) WBAI Radio "Here of a Sunday Morning" website (Accessed 22 February 2014).[unreliable source?]
  • Dulong, Gilles. 2009. "En relisant Solage". In A Late Medieval Songbook and Its Context: New Perspectives on the Chantilly Codex (Bibliothèque du Château de Chantilly, Ms. 564), edited by Yolanda Plumley and Anne Stone, 45–61. Collection "Epitome musical". Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 9782503515984 (pbk).
  • Gombosi, Otto. 1950. "French Secular Music of the Fourteenth Century Edited by Willi Apel" (Review). The Musical Quarterly 36, no. 4 (October): 603–10.
  • Greimas, A. J. 1982. Dictionnaire de l'ancien français jusqu'au milieu du XIVe siècle, second edition, revised and corrected. Paris: Libraire Larousse. OCLC 222960085 ISBN 978-2-03-340206-8
  • Günther, Ursula. 2001. "Goscalch". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
  • Leach, Elizabeth Eva. 2007. Sung Birds: Music, Nature, and Poetry in the Later Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-4491-3
  • Lefferts, Peter M. (May 1988). "Subtilitas in the Tonal Language of "Fumeux fume"". Early Music. Oxford University Press. 16 (2): 176–183. doi:10.1093/earlyj/XVI.2.176. JSTOR 3127190.
  • Lefferts, Peter M. 1988. "Subtilitas in the Tonal Language of Fumeux fume". Early Music 16, no. 2 (May): 176–83.
  • Lindfors-Nordin, E. G. 1938. "D'où viennent ces vers?" Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Literatur 61, nos. 3–4:181–87.
  • McComb, Todd M. n.d. "Who were the fumeurs?". www.medieval.org (Accessed 22 February 2014).
  • Page, Christopher. 1977. "Machaut's 'Pupil' Deschamps on the Performance of Music: Voices or Instruments in the 14th-Century Chanson". Early Music 5, no. 4 (October): 484–91.
  • Plumley, Yolanda. 2001. "Solage", Grove Music Online ed. Laura Macy (20 January) (Accessed 25 Jun 2005), (subscription access)
  • Plumley, Yolanda. 2003. "An 'Episode in the South'? Ars Subtilior and the Patronage of French Princes". Early Music History 22:103–68.
  • Plumley, Yolanda. 2004. "Crossing Borderlines: Points of Contact between the Late-Fourteenth Century French Lyric and Chanson Repertories". Acta Musicologica 76, no. 1:3–23.
  • Plumley, Yolanda (2009) [2001]. "Solage". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.26126. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  • Reaney, Gilbert. 1954. "The Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 1047". Musica Disciplina 8:59–113.
  • Wilkins, Nigel (1979). Music in the age of Chaucer. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer. ISBN 978-0-85991-052-1.

Further reading

  • Apel, Willi. 1946–47. "The French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century". Acta Musicologica 18–19:17–29.
  • Apel, Willi. 1973. "The Development of French Secular Music during the Fourteenth Century". Musica Disciplina 27:41–59.
  • Berger, Christian. 1996. "Solages Ballade Calextone und die Grenzen des Tonsystems". In Modality in the Music of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries/ Modalität in der Musik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by Ursula Günther, Ludwig Finscher, and Jeffrey J. Dean, 75–91. Musicological Studies and Documents 49. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology; Hänssler Verlag. ISBN 3-7751-2423-3
  • Gómez, Ma Carmen. 1987. "La Musique a la Maison Royale de Navarre a la fin du Moyen-âge et le Chantre Johan Robert". Musica Disciplina 41 (1380-1430: An International Style?): 109–51.
  • Günther, Ursula. 1960a. "Die Anwendung der Diminution in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 17, No.1:1–21.
  • Günther, Ursula. 1960b. "Der Gebrauch des tempus perfectum diminutum in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047". Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 17, no. 4:277–97.
  • Günter, Ursula. 1961. "Datierbare Balladen des späten 14. Jahrhunderts, I". Musica Disciplina 15:39–61.
  • Günther, Ursula. 1963. "Die Musiker des Herzogs von Berry". Musica Disciplina 17:79–91, 93–95.
  • Günther, Ursula. 1991. "Die Ars subtilior des späten 14. Jahrhunderts". In Für György Ligeti. Die Referate des Ligeti-Kongresses 1988, edited by Constantin Floros, 277–88. Hamburger Jahrbuch fur Musikwissenschaft 11. Laaber: Laaber-Verlag. ISBN 9783890072203
  • Günther, Ursula. 1996. "Calextone von Solage: Ein ungewöhnliches Werk". In Modality in the Music of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries/ Modalität in der Musik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by Ursula Günther, Ludwig Finscher, and Jeffrey J. Dean, 65–74. Musicological Studies and Documents 49. Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology; Hänssler Verlag. ISBN 3-7751-2423-3
  • Hirshberg, Jehoash. 1971. "The Music of the Late Fourteenth Century: A Study in Musical Style". Ph.D. diss. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
  • Hoppin, Richard H. 1978. Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-393-09090-6
  • Josephson, Nors S. 1986. "Intersectional Relationships in the French 'Grande Ballade'". Musica Disciplina 40:79–97.
  • Josephson, Nors S. 2003–2008. "Many Roads Lead to Rome: Multifarious Stylistic Tendencies and Their Musical Interrelationships within the 'Ars Subtilior'". Musica Disciplina 53:71–97.
  • Story, Christina Maria Nest. 2008. "Music and Musicians in the Court and City of Paris During the Reign of Charles VI (1380–1422)". PhD diss. London: Royal Holloway, University of London.
  • Unruh, Patricia 1983. "'Fumeur' Poetry and Music of the Chantilly Codex: A Study of Its Meaning and Background". MA thesis. Vancouver: University of British Columbia.
  • Upton, Elizabeth Randell (2013). Music and Performance in the Later Middle Ages. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-27770-1.
  • Wilkins, Nigel E. (1968). "The Post-Machaut Generation of Poet-Musicians". Nottingham Medieval Studies. 12: 40–84. doi:10.1484/J.NMS.3.38. Reprinted in Wilkins, Nigel E. (2011). "Words and Music in Medieval Europe". Farnham: Ashgate. 8: 40–84.

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