It is a sad fact for those interested in
the lyrical art of medieval France that relatively few of the musical settings
of troubadour and trouvère lyric texts
have survived from the 12th and 13th centuries. In Nigel
Watkins’ The Lyric Art of Medieval France,
the author indicates that over four thousand lyric texts have survived from the
time of the troubadour and trouvère, while monodic
musical settings for these texts survives for only less than half of the
repertory. This could be due to a lack of musical copyists, or the fact that
many of the melodies may have been so well known or too well memorized by all
that they did not necessitate documentation. There is also the possibility
that, in some cases, the poems were meant to be read or recited rather than
sung. Indeed, the vidas of many of the troubadours
indicate that many were more accomplished or well known as poets than as
musicians, although the opposite could just as well be true in some cases.
Adam de la Halle is believed to have been
able to read and write both music and words. The importance of Adam de la Halle
is so considerable that many musicologists have devoted much research into the
work of just this one trouvère. Some even refer to Adam de la Halle as “the last of the trouvères.”
In the middle ages, the patronage system
was crucial to the survival of many artists. A poet or musician receiving
patronage was generally a member of his patron’s household. The artist received
wages (probably a lump sum over a certain period of time), housing, clothing
and, sometimes, land, while the patron’s reputation would in turn be enhanced
by the presence of a distinguished musician or poet in his or her household. In
addition to supporting talented artists, patrons would sometimes be responsible
for the spreading of cultural influence as well as having an influence on
current style and taste in poetry and music. Adam de la Halle had, at least in
the early part of his life, a somewhat different career path than many of his
contemporaries. Born in Arras between the years 1245 to 1250, the young Adam is
believed to have received financial assistance from wealthy merchants in his
town, where he was a prominent member of the poet’s guild. Adam married while
he was a young clerk, but it has been suggested that regretting his lost
career, he decided to further his studies in Paris in 1276 under the
sponsorship of some of the rich merchants of Arras.
Adam de la Halle did enjoy a period of
patronage when he entered the service of Robert II, Count of Artois. In 1283,
Adam accompanied Robert on his expedition to Italy to aid his uncle Charles of
Anjou in the war against the Sicilians. While there, Adam entered the service
of Charles of Anjou and wrote some significant works for the entertainment of
the French courts in the two Sicilies. Adam de la Halle is believed to have
died in Naples around 1285 to 1288. Other evidence suggests, however, that Adam
was one of the entertainers who performed for the coronation of Edward II in
1307. An English source from 1306 showed
a ‘Maistre Adam le Boscu’ among the
minstrels engaged for the coronation – Adam
le Boscu d’Arras’ is another name by which Adam was called. If the English
report did indeed refer to Adam de la Halle, his death would have occurred when
he was over sixty. However, in Style and
Symbol – Medieval Music 800 – 1453, Andrew Hughes suggests that the English
record could have been referring to a different Adam, or a younger member of
his family.
Adam is perhaps unique among trouvères in that he
composed not only monophonic songs, but also in a great variety of other genres.
In addition to monophonic chansons,
he also wrote jeux-partis – debating
songs – as well as some polyphonic rondeaux
and motets. One work by which Adam is particularly known is the dramatic
pastoral Le Jeu de Robin et Marion,
referred to by some as the first opéra comique. The bulk of the artist’s musical and poet output, however, falls
under the monophonic chansons.
At the end of the 11th century,
the courts of southern France and the duchy of Aquitaine became the centre of a
great outpouring of cultural activities. At the courts, a leisured society was
devoted to cultivating poetry, chivalry and music. The years 1140 to 1220
marked the height of the art of the troubadours
from the south of France and from Provence. In 1209, the barons of northern France,
encouraged by the Pope, set out on the so-called Albigensian Crusade against
heretics in southern France. This war between North and South destroyed not
only the heresy, but also the civilization of the south. By the 13th
century, Paris had become the centre of European civilization, with French as
the “universal” language. The trouvères continued the
tradition of courtly love of the troubadours
in their chansons. Like the troubadours, the trouvères originated from various classes of
society. At the end of the 13th century, the repertory of monophonic
secular songs was represented best by Pierre de la Croix, and certainly by Adam
de la Halle.
Although a great deal of attention has been
paid in the present century to the polyphonic compositions as well as plays of
Adam de la Halle, it was as a trouvère in the high courtly style that his contemporaries chiefly valued
him. Unlike other trouvère, whose output has largely been preserved in a dozen or so large chansonniers plus a number of smaller
sources, the songs of Adam de la Halle appear primarily in collections devoted
entirely to his works. Adam’s courtly chansons
survived in eight main manuscripts and several lesser ones.
More than one scholar has commented upon
the beauty and craftsmanship of the poetry for Adam’s thirty-six chansons. Deborah Hubbard Nelson
comments that in spite of a lack of individuality in the poet’s lyric, the
poetry of Adam de la Halle “communicates such a feeling of freshness that, if
the reader or listener were not familiar with the poetic tradition of France
and Provence in the twelfth and thirteen centuries, he might indeed credit Adam
with remarkable originality. In the courtly chansons,
according to John Stevens, we see Adam the craftsman, and “the maker of
beautiful objects.” As in the case with other troubadour and trouvère melodies, Adam’s chansons
can exist in divergent versions. Stevens points out that the divergence of
notational practices is a result of the fact that copying or notating from
memory was something that “was no simple mechanical act with a single ‘correct’
answer but an act which remained flexible, individual and creative, to match
these same qualities in the singer’s and composer’s art.”
Thematically, most of Adams chansons follow
the courtly tradition of the time – the poet addressing his
forever-inaccessible lady. Related to this are the themes of the need for
suffering as a test for love and the importance of hope. The central theme, or
oxymoron, is the bitter-sweetness of love.
To understand the relationship between the
poet and “his lady”, we must first understand that the audience in Adam’s time
liked songs that dwelled upon the intricacies of this “relationship” – if we
can call it that – between the lover and the object of his desire who seemed
indifferent to him. According to Nancy van Deusen, “’she’ is as predictable as
a ‘thing’, an object. She never relents, nor does she reciprocate. It is the
poet-composer, not the ‘object’ of his love, who receives, during the course of
his songs, a persona.” That said, it
has to be pointed out that Adam de la Halle was not an absolute slave to the
courtly tradition surrounding him. In one of his songs, the admission of a
physical element with her lover came from the woman’s lips, that she “hopes
often to lie against his sweet body.” It is also of interest to note that a
number of the composer’s chansons
preach “a more realistic and sincere ideal of mutual tolerance” – an almost 20th
century concept of marriage, according to some. Other popular themes with Adam
are the possibilities of ladies being deceived and the need for them to be
constantly on their guard, against men, one presumes.
In addition to the songs in courtly
tradition that constitute the bulk of Adam’s output of monophonic chansons are two songs of devotion to
the Virgin Mary – Qui n’a puchele ou dame
amée and Glorieuse Vierge Marie. In the latter work, Adam asks for the
intercession of the Virgin Mary for the pardoning of his sins. It is
interesting that Adam de la Halle’s (and perhaps other trouvères’)
devotional songs use the same vocabulary and style that are used to
describe more earthly love. On the whole, pious songs make up only a small
fraction of the composer’s output.
Eighteen of Adam de la Halle’s monophonic
compositions are jeux-partis – songs
of debate. In the 13th century, the town of Arras had societies that
encouraged literary pursuits amongst their members – the Confrerie des jongleurs et bourgeois d’Arras, otherwise known as carite des ardents. In The Lyrical Art of Medieval France,
Nigel Wilkins explains that the carite
des ardents was, “(i)n the first place a religious Guild in which jongleurs knew particular favour, since
Our Lady was said to have appeared to two of them in the Cathedral of Arras in
1105 in order to present a miraculous candle, drops from the wax of which, when
consumed in water, would cure the plague of the mal des ardents.”
Eventually the Confrerie developed a separate literary Guild in which both secular
and devotional works were heard. Some of its members were extremely talented –
Jehan Bretal, for example, a member of a wealthy family of bankers and
merchants, partnered Adam de la Halle in sixteen out of eighteen of the
composer’s jeux-partis. In the jeux-partis, the melodies are thought to
have been composed by the one who poses the question, that is, the one who
sings the first strophe. In thirteen out of sixteen cases, Jehan Bretal was the
“questioner” and Adam the “responder”. All 16 of the jeux-partis in which Adam de la Halle took part and for which music
had been preserved are included in manuscript sources of his collected works.
In The
Lyric Art of Medieval France, Nigel Wilkins discusses the “composition” of
the jeux-partis in some length. A
superficial impression, as he points out, is probably one of two debating partners
stepping forward to show off a brilliant display of improvisation to debate a
point set out by a judge. However, further consideration of the construction of
the jeux-partis, with their matching
rhyme and metre, as well as rhythm and melody throughout, made it clear that,
far from being an improvisation, the works must have been planned very
carefully. There is evidence that the theme of the debate was issued many days
before the contest. To this point, it has been suggested that the winner of the
debate might also have “worked over” the rough edges of his composition so that
the work would look good when published. Wilkins raises the possibility of a
joint effort in determining the versification and the music.
It has also been pointed out that Adam’s
meeting with the older Jehan Bretal had a significant influence on the younger
man’s melodic style when he came to writing his monophonic chansons. In the Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Robert Falck points out similarities
between the jeux-partis involving
Adam and Bretal with two of Adam’s chansons.
Adam de la Halle’s polyphonic works have
generated much interest in musicological circles. Nigel Wilkins thinks that
Adam’s polyphonic writing, as applied to the motets, have significant implications
for his subsequent development. In Style
and Symbol, Andrew Hughes thinks it difficult to see Adam’s polyphonic
songs as a link between the monophonic and polyphonic traditions, therefore
“leaving a gap of a generation between Adam and Machaut.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
lists Adam’s polyphonic compositions only under rondeaux and motets. The term rondeaux,
specifically the 13th century understanding of the term, is applied
more or less to refrain songs that are “round” by virtue of an initial refrain
that recurs periodically – somewhat like today’s popular songs. The exceptions
to the standard rondeau form are Fines amouretes ai, which is a virelai, and Dieus soit, which is a ballade with an initial refrain.
The subject matter of the rondeau, virelai and ballade tends
to deal with some trifle or detail of amorous casuistry. It is rare for a poem
to be concerned with anything but love, which is invariably the courtly species
so proudly sung by the troubadours.
Even in the religious rondeaux in the
vernacular are to be found, they are generally composed using the same language
as amorous poetry.
In Fi,
mares, de vostre amour, wittily describes a wife’s true feeling toward her
husband and her lover:
A fig for your
love, husband, for I have a lover!
He is handsome
and good looking.
He serves me
night and day,
and that is why I
love him so.
As with the rondeaux, many of Adam de la
Halle’s motets deal with the various aspects of love with wit. In the motet J’os bien a m’amie parler / Je n’os a m’amie aler / Seculum, the lover’s two points of view
are given simultaneously in the two upper voices:
Of course I dare
to speak to my lover when her husband is there, and kiss and embrace her right
by her side, and call him a dirty old jealous man and a rogue too, and shut him
out of his house while I have my will with my love, and make the wretch cool
his heels outside.
I do not dare to
go to my love because of her husband, who always keeps an eye on me; for I
cannot be near her without looking at her pretty face, and between lovers it is
hard to hide the signs of love.
In yet another motet, Adam employs the
drinking theme as he recalls moments of his days as a student in Paris. This is
a far cry from the traditions of courtly love that so permeates his other
works:
Anyone who hears
Adam, Hanikel, Hancant and Gautelot enjoying themselves will have much delight:
when they sing hoquets the youngsters go faster than the clappers, as long as
they have had a drink first!
Scholars have attributed five motets in three voices to Adam de la
Halle with a high degree of certainty. Modern editors have attributed six
additional motets to Adam because they contain musical material found in his
genuine compositions. It is of course possible that other contemporary or later
composers quoted Adam’s music in their own compositions.
When the name Adam de la Halle is mentioned in music history texts,
it is usually in association with his famous Jeu de Robin et Marion – Play of Robin and Marion, described by Hoppin
in Medieval Music as “a dramatized pastourelle with incidental music.” In
fact, the work is one of three dramatic works by the composer but the only one
that uses music extensively. This work of Adam’s has been referred to by many
as the first opéra comique. Perhaps the nature of the composition would place it closer t the pastourelle than to what we presently
associate as opéra comique.
There have been suggestions that much of the music of Robin et Marion is borrowed from other
sources. Some of the melodies introduced in the dramatic work have been claimed
to be popular folk tunes of the time. Adam also incorporated the only authentic
surviving chanson de geste melody
into the play, where it was quoted by one of the characters. One of the most
popular and tuneful songs from the work has to be the monophonic rondeau with choral refrain sung by
Marion at the opening. As with the texts of many of Adam’s other rondeaux dealing with amour, the nature of love is far from
platonic:
Robin loves me
Robin has me
Robin asked me if he can have me.
Robin took off my skirt of scarlet, good and pretty, my bodice and
girdle.
Hurray!
The early life and much of the work of Adam de la Halle highlight
the importance of the patronage system and their influence on the style and
taste of the arts. Moreover, the Confrerie
in Arras to which Adam belonged, with its jeux-partis,
shows the desire of the middle class to emulate members of the nobility. This
climate provided an unusually fertile environment for the development of poetic
as well as musical talents.
Adam de la Halle’s creative output is rather unique in that he
composed both monophonic chansons as
well as polyphonic works. The large number of manuscripts that contain his
works shows the popularity of the monophonic chansons. In terms of both the
poetry and the music, it is generally agreed that Adam does not seem to be an
innovator. In his poetry, Adam “carried on the tradition of the Provencal and
North French love lyric without adding substantively to it. Yet an examination
of Adam de la Halle’s courtly chansons
shows that the craftsmanship and beauty of both the poetry and the music are
beyond question. Maybe it is in the idea of a work like Jeu de Robin et Marion that Adam de la Halle can be considered
forward-looking and influential?
In his passionate essay on Richard Strauss, Glenn Gould suggests
that Strauss is an example of a man who “makes richer his own time by not being
of it; who speaks for all generations by being of none.” Perhaps Adam de la
Halle, by being a representative of a past as well as a future generation of
musical aesthetics, can also be thought of as one who “makes richer his own
time by not being of it”?
Whatever the case may be, Adam de la Halle would always be thought
of as both a prolific and highly skilled creator of poetry and music in most if
not all genres common in the 13th century.
