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Nous trouvons fréquemment dans les récits médiévaux, textes poétiques et lais des mentions de « voix », de « chant ». Les descriptions de composition et d'interprétation, les mentions d’écriture et d'enseignement musical y abondent. Il m'a semblé intéressant d'examiner ces concepts littéraires ou métaphoriques de la vie musicale et de l'utilisation de la voix en vue de leur utilité pour les interprètes d'aujourd'hui. Quels enseignements pouvons-nous – interprètes du répertoire médiéval séculier, lyrique et narratif – tirer de telles descriptions?
Il convient de prime abord de rappeler que nos conventions actuelles concernant la création, la transmission et l'interprétation musicales ne sont pas tout à fait les mêmes que celles qui régissent le répertoire médiéval séculier. La notion d'Auteur-Compositeur-Interprète, reconnue de nos jours uniquement pour certains répertoires (comme celui de la chanson), est loin de la conception couramment acceptée dans le monde de la musique classique et de chambre, qui veut que le compositeur et l'interprète soient deux personnes bien distinctes, aux talents particuliers et aux fonctions précises et clairement définies.
Dans le contexte du récit médiéval, et d'une certaine façon dans celui de la musique médiévale en général, l'interprète contemporain ne peut que devenir créateur à son tour. Nous ne reviendrons pas ici sur la question de l'interprétation musicale des récits, longuement explorée ailleurs. L'interprète médiéval et/ou contemporain de ces récits est non seulement le maillon d'une chaîne créatrice, il est aussi, de fait, le créateur d'une œuvre qui ne prend véritable vie qu’à cause de son interprétation, de sa voix. Afin d'examiner les notions de création, d’écriture et d'interprétation dans le domaine du récit médiéval, quels textes nous parlent de façon plus évocatrice que les narrations de l'histoire de Tristan et Yseut? Icônes par excellence des héros-musiciens, Tristan et Yseut nous sont représentés dans leur vie musicale de maintes façons et à plusieurs moments cruciaux de leur histoire. Héros tous deux, ils sont nécessairement uniques dans leurs exploits : ce statut demande des qualités hors pair, mythiques, dissociées de la réalité et du possible. Mais tout au long de la trame de leur histoire musicale certains indices nous révèlent peut-être des pratiques réelles. Ce sont les rôles de Tristan et Yseut compositeurs, écrivains, interprètes (vocaux et instrumentistes) qui retiendront notre attention.
This collection of essays pays tribute to Nancy Freeman Regalado, a ground-breaking scholar in the field of medieval French literature whose research has always pushed beyond disciplinary boundaries. The articles in the volume reflect the depth and diversity of her scholarship, as well as her collaborations with literary critics, philologists, historians, art historians, musicologists, and vocalists - in France, England, and the United States. Inspired by her most recent work, these twenty-four essays are tied together by a single question, rich in ramifications: how does performance shape our understanding of medieval and pre-modern literature and culture, whether the nature of that performance is visual, linguistic, theatrical, musical, religious, didactic, socio-political, or editorial? The studies presented here invite us to look afresh at the interrelationship of audience, author, text, and artifact, to imagine new ways of conceptualizing the creation, transmission, and reception of medieval literature, music, and art.
EGLAL DOSS-QUINBY is Professor of French at Smith College; ROBERTA L. KRUEGER is Professor of French at Hamilton College; E. JANE BURNS is Professor of Women's Studies and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Contributors: ANNE AZÉMA, RENATE BLUMENFELD-KOSINSKI, CYNTHIA J. BROWN, ELIZABETH A. R. BROWN, MATILDA TOMARYN BRUCKNER, E. JANE BURNS, ARDIS BUTTERFIELD, KIMBERLEE CAMPBELL, ROBERT L. A. CLARK, MARK CRUSE, KATHRYN A. DUYS, ELIZABETH EMERY, SYLVIA HUOT, MARILYN LAWRENCE, KATHLEEN A. LOYSEN, LAURIE POSTLEWATE, EDWARD H. ROESNER, SAMUEL N. ROSENBERG, LUCY FREEMAN SANDLER, PAMELA SHEINGORN, HELEN SOLTERER, JANE H. M. TAYLOR, EVELYN BIRGE VITZ, LORI J. WALTERS, AND MICHEL ZINK.
Singing is a dangerous enterprise; singers are often tempted to focus their efforts on peripheral issues. It is best for performers to have a clear idea of priorities. For me, the potency of the word, the strength of the poetic gesture, and the act of storytelling are what is central to singing medieval music. These seem much more important goals than that of simply attaining a beautiful sound (however one chooses to define that notion). The combination of word with poetic gesture and sound makes for an interesting dialogue—a complex series of dance steps into which the public is ultimately invited to participate. Medieval storytelling lives in a space of freedom won from two kinds of bondage: that of seeking either beauty or entertainment for its own sake. Some of this freedom resides in the wide variety of medieval narrative forms, a repertoire which includes the reverie, pastourelle, alba, chanson d’ami, chanson de croisade, chanson de toile, chanson de mal-mariée. All of these offer excellent opportunities for performers.
I have also been interested in taking less traveled roads—namely performing narrative texts without music, especially in French, my mother tongue. It seems clear that these purely narrative texts were in fact performed, or contés. Gautier de Coincy himself tells us at the beginning of his Miracles de Nostre Dame [Miracles of Our Lady]: “Translater voel en rime et metre / que cil et celes qui la letre / n’entendent pas puissent entendre” [I want to translate into verse so that men and women who do not know how to read can apprehend].
Without entering further into the scholarship that justifies modern perform ances, I would like to present a number of issues and reflections arising from my work on medieval song narrative. I draw from my own experience as a performer and editor with references most particularly to the following works: two by Gautier de Coincy from his Miracles de Nostre Dame (the Leocadia story and Dou Cierge qui descendi au jongleour [The Candle Sent Down to the Minstrel]), and the well-traveled production of Tristan et Iseult. Other remarks derive from my performances of Marie de France's Guigemar, various fables, a Provençal Passion play, Philippe de Thaon's poetry, Le Roman de Fauvel [The Romance of Fauvel], and several of the narrative Cantigas de Santa Maria by Alfonso X el Sabio.
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