“Historical Anthology of Music by Women”
“The Countess of Dia, a beautiful and good woman, was the wife of Guil- laume de Poitiers. She fell in love with Raimbaut d’Orange, in whose honor she wrote many good songs,” So reads the entire vida, or medieval biographical sketch, of the trobairitz whose “A Chantar” is presented here. Even this meager information needs to be regarded with skepticism, for it has never been proven that any Guillaume de Poitiers was ever married to a woman with a claim to the title of the county of Die. Be that as it may, lack of documentation has not deterred the popular imagination from formulating an intriguing genealogy based on sparse historical evidence and tantalizing legend.
One possible identification of the Countess of Dia proposes that the trobairitz, whom tradition has referred to as “Beatritz,” was really Isoarde (d. 1212 or 1214), daughter of Isoard, Count of Die. The Raimbaut of the vida (d. 1218) would be the grandnephew of the troubadour Raimbaut d’Orange. A related story suggests that a certain Guillaume, an illegitimate son of the house of Poitiers, was married to a woman whose son bore the title Count of Die. This marriage produced twin daughters, born around n 40, one of whom would eventually marry another Guillaume and fall in love with Raimbaut d’Orange, the troubadour. Whatever the case, it would be a mistake to assume that any twelfth-century canso, or love song, was intended to reflect the details of anyone’s personal life.
It is difficult to say very much about the Countess of Dia as a composer. “A Chantar” is the only one of the four or five poems attributed to her that has survived with its melody. This single melody, which is also the only one by a trobairitz to have been identified, is preserved in only one thirteenth-century manuscript, and it includes only the first cobla, or stanza. The melody “A Chantar” is characterized by the same supple style that is associated with troubadour lyric in general. As there is some evidence that the musical meter of troubadour song may not have been precisely measured, it is possible that, in practice, individual notes were of more or less equal duration. The overall form of the piece can be classified as a “rounded” chanson, since the B section returns at the end. The formal schema of “A Chantar” follows.
It is worth noting that “rounded” songs would enjoy widespread popularity in the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries, for composers and poets would develop a fascination with the sense of closure inherent to this form. The five coblas are made up of seven ten-syllable lines, with lines 2, 4, and 7 sharing the same melodic contour.
A striking difference can be seen in the first stanza of “A Chantar” as it occurs in manuscripts written in Occitan, the language of the Countess of Dia, which was spoken in southern France, and as it appears in the manuscript containing the only extant melody. It is clear from the Occitan text that the person who feels moved to sing of the pain of love is a woman, an “amia.” This identification thus connects the twelfth-century text with the tradition of the “chanson de lemme,” a well-established mode of love lyric expressed in the feminine voice. Nevertheless, it is revealing to notice that the scribe who produced the thirteenth-century copy of the text, as given in the musical score below, must have assumed that the composer was a male, as was more often the case for the troubadour lyric. This later version of the piece, whose language reflects a mixture of Occitan and Old French, shows changes from “lui” to “cele” (“him” to “her”) and from “amia” to “amigs” (“female lover” to “male lover”)—in spite of the fact that the latter modification is inappropriate to the meter and music of line 2. The normal pattern of versification would require the feminine “amie,” a form ending in “-e,” in order to fit both the rhyme scheme of the first four lines (“deu-ri-e,” “si-e,” “cur-te-si-e”) and the melodic figure with which these lines end (io. u). One can only speculate as to why such modifications occur in the transmission of a text. Perhaps they were due to prejudice against women composers or to the scribe’s habit of thinking only in terms of male composers. For the purposes of studying “A Chantar,” it is sufficient to note that only a “male” version exists, even when “female” versions of the text predate the “male” one that accompanies the extant music.
Recording
Chansons der Troubadours. “A Chantar.” Studio de fruhen Musik, Thomas Binkley, director. Telefunken SAWT 9567-B.
Further Reading
Bogin, Meg. The Women Troubadours. New York: Pendragon, 1976.
I must sing of that which I would rather not, so embittered am I toward her whose lover I am, for I love her more than anything. My good looks, courtly bearing, virtue, merit, and intelligence are worthless, for I have been tricked and betrayed as if I were unpleasing.
Reprinted from The Extant Troubadour Melodies, 1984, by permission of the author and publisher, Hendrik van der Werf.
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