Ballads by Solage and Senleches
All the ballads of the French composer Solage are transmitted in the Codex Chantilly. The incipit at the head of the homepage has been taken from his most famous ballad, “Fumeux fume par fume”. For the recording we chose the ballad “Helas, je voy mon cuer”.
Jacob de Senleches, who apparently was active at the court of Eleanor of Castile (†1382), wrote the wonderful ballad ”Fuions de ci“, in which he deplores her death and the need to leave her court. He is also the author of the ballads “En attendant esperance” and “Je me merveil – J’ay plusieurs fois”.
Motets by Guillaume de Machaut
Machaut is considered to be the most significant composer of the ars nova. His motets, some of which are also found in the “Codex Ivrea”, were not transcribed anew by Olaf Raitzig. Instead, he compared the facsimiles (as far as they were available to him) with the extremely accurate editions of the musicologist Friedrich Ludwig. All we have are Raitzig’s annotations in the existing scores. For better reference in the playlist the recordings are supplied with the prefix “Ma” followed by a number placed in front of the specific title. The siglum “Ma1”, for example, indicates Machaut’s motet no. 1 (following the nomenclature provided in Friedrich Ludwig’s edition).
ars antiqua Motets from the Codex Montpellier
The Codex Montpellier contains 328 compositions, the majority of which are motets which were entered sorted by genre, number of voices and language of the upper parts. The facsimiles are extremely well preserved as well as beautifully embellished and colorised. Of the three-part motets bearing the ciphers “Mo273” to “Mo345” there are 32 recordings, seven of which were selected for the playlist. Added in front of their titles are the sigla Mo273, Mo292, Mo298, Mo299, Mo305, Mo311 and Mo338.
Additional Motets
The motets “Gratiosus – Magnanimus” and “Laurea Martirii – Conlaudanda” were taken from the Codex Modena and the motet “O dira natio – Mens in nequitia” from the Codex Trémoïlle.
The “Brussels Rotulus” from Belgium contains, among others, the ars nova motets “Mater formosa – Gaude virgo” and “Floret cum vana – Florens virgor”. A copy of the rotulus (a rolled-up manuscript measuring 17.5 x 139 cm) is preserved in Olaf Raitzig’s estate. It is therefore highly probable that he transcribed the scores directly from the facsimiles.
The beautiful piece “A virtutis – Ergo beata” is the only surviving motet by the French composer Johannes Cesaris. It was probably composed around the year 1400. Cesaris is considered to be a composer both of the late middle ages and the early Renaissance.