The Music of Old French Song

FAIN: FA-53236-07

Elizabeth Aubrey
University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA 52242-1320)

The project is a book about the music of vernacular songs of France in the 12th and 13th centuries. These songs are a window into the culture of the late Middle Ages. I will survey the social context within which the songs were created, study their musical style and relationships between the poems and melodies, and address controversial questions about their performance. My research is based on a reassessment of the medieval manuscripts that preserve the songs, whose testimony to the transmission and preservation of the music has not been fully explored. The book will serve teachers and students of music and literature as an accessible survey of the music and will be the first comprehensive account of this rich repertoire.