Troubadours to Versailles
French Music
Course 1 · Chapter 2 · Troubadours to Versailles
The earliest French music that survives was sung in castles and churches, and the music that followed was shaped by a king who understood that a court which sings and dances together is a court that stays in order. This chapter covers roughly six centuries, from the medieval songs of the troubadours to the keyboard pieces of the eighteenth century. The evidence thins the further back one goes: few early songs survive with their music, and dates are often approximate. Names, dates and attributions are given from general knowledge and flagged where they should be checked.
Two Kinds of Medieval Singer
Medieval France had two languages and so two song traditions.
Troubadours
Poet-composers of the south who wrote in Occitan, the language of the langue d'oc. Their songs are usually about courtly love. William IX, Duke of Aquitaine, is often named as the earliest whose work survives (check the details).
Trouvères
Their counterparts in the north, writing in the langue d'oïl, an ancestor of modern French. Hundreds of their melodies survive in manuscripts (check the number).
What survives
The words of many songs survive without music, and the manuscripts do not show rhythm clearly, so modern performances involve a good deal of reconstruction.
Notre-Dame and the Birth of Polyphony
While the troubadours sang one melodic line, church musicians in Paris were learning to combine several. Around the building of the cathedral of Notre-Dame in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a group of musicians is associated with developing polyphony, music in which different voices sing different notes at once. The names usually given are Léonin and Pérotin, and a large collection of such music is known as the Magnum liber organi (check the names, dates and the extent of each person's role, which come largely from a later English writer and are debated). The importance is clear even if the biographies are not: Paris was one of the places where Western music learned to be written in several parts.
Guillaume de Machaut
In the fourteenth century Guillaume de Machaut was both a poet and a composer, and is often called the most important French composer of his century (check the description). He is associated with the style known as the ars nova ("new art"), which developed new ways of notating rhythm. His Messe de Nostre Dame is usually described as one of the first complete settings of the Mass by a single composer (check the claim, which depends on how "complete" and "single" are defined).
Louis XIV and Lully
Louis XIV, who ruled France for more than seventy years in the seventeenth century, used music, dance and theatre as instruments of royal authority. He danced himself in the court ballets of his youth (check the details), and music marked every part of court life: the morning rising, the chapel, the evening entertainments. The man most closely tied to this system was Jean-Baptiste Lully, an Italian-born musician who became a French subject and gained control of French opera and much court music (check the dates and the legal arrangements).
| Feature | What it means |
|---|---|
| Tragédie en musique | The French form of serious opera, built on classical subjects, with dance and a prominent chorus (check the term's usage) |
| Academy of opera | A royal institution founded in the 1660s and 1670s that Lully came to control; the ancestor of the Paris Opera (check the dates) |
| Court dance | Dances such as the minuet and the gavotte, written for court entertainments |
| Control | Lully held a monopoly that limited what other composers could stage, which shows the link between music and royal power |
A famous legend says that Lully died after accidentally striking his foot with the staff he used to beat time, which led to an infection (check the details). The broad outline is widely repeated and probably has a basis in the records, but the exact sequence deserves care before it is told firmly.
Couperin and Rameau
After Lully, French music moved from the court toward a wider public. Two names stand out.
François Couperin
Organist at the royal chapel and a harpsichord composer (1668 to 1733, check). His keyboard pieces often carry descriptive titles and are full of ornaments. He is sometimes called "Couperin le Grand" to distinguish him from other musicians of his family.
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Composer and theorist (1683 to 1764, check), whose book on harmony became a landmark in music theory, and whose operas replaced Lully's as the leading French works. Debates between his supporters and those of Italian opera were a feature of mid-century Paris (check).
Exercises
Explain the difference between a troubadour and a trouvère, and say why modern performances of their songs involve reconstruction.
Describe how Louis XIV used music, and explain why Lully's monopoly shows the link between music and royal power.
Pick one claim from this chapter marked "check" (such as the Lully legend or the Notre-Dame attributions) and say how you would test it.
Quick Reference
- Troubadours and trouvères: poet-composers of the south (Occitan) and the north
- Notre-Dame: early polyphony; Léonin and Pérotin, attributions debated
- Machaut: fourteenth-century poet and composer, ars nova
- Louis XIV and Lully: music as an instrument of royal power; a monopoly on opera
- Couperin and Rameau: keyboard music and the move from court to wider public
- Check: early attributions, the Lully legend, dates
Next chapter: Revolution, Opera & the Romantic Century, which covers La Marseillaise, Berlioz, Offenbach, Bizet and Franck.