The epiphanic moment in which a listener realizes that musical borrowing has taken place concerns not only the relation between two texts but also performance. For instance, in the 1939 film The Thief of Baghdad there is a brief allusion to a passage from the overture to Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer. When one recognizes such borrowing, it is dependent on a "polysemic mélange" that works together to make such recognition possible. For instance, beyond the musical resemblances, the film and the opera share a number of images, such as a ship and blood-red sails. Also, in both film and opera it seems as if music animates objects. An individual's particular viewing experience can also contribute to the experience, such as when a movie theater and an opera hall share similar acoustics. Such ludic details of performance are often overlooked but are an inseparable part of such epiphanic moments.

Works: Miklós Rózsa: Score to The Thief of Baghdad (597-609).

Sources: Richard Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer (597-609).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Film

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

While some three-part pieces written before 1520 were given a si placet fourth part, the majority of concordant three- and four-part chansons show the reverse: four-part chansons before 1550 were most often turned into three-part pieces by removing a line, usually the contratenor. In evaluating individual pieces to determine the presence of preexistent material, the following should be considered: (1) the presence of defective harmonic writing; (2) the range and character of the questionable voice (an unusual number of semiminims, frequent voice crossing, or a general low range of all the voices would suggest a four-part original); (3) the presence of more than one cantus firmus among concordances of a given piece; (4) comparison of questionable pieces with others by the same composer.

Works: Anonymous: Amour vault trop qui bien (240); Conflicting attributions: Amy, soufrez que je vous ayme (240-41); Anonymous: Ces facheux sotz qui mesdisent d'aymer (241); Ninot le Petit or Willaert: C'est donc par moy (241); Janequin: De son amour me donne jouyssance (241-42); Anonymous: En regardant son gratieux maintien (242), Fortune, less-moy la vie (242), J'ay trop aymé, vrayment je le confesse (242), Je ne sçay pas comment (242-43); Claudin: Jouyssance vous donneray (243), Languir me fais sans t'avoir offensé (244); Anonymous: Le cueur est bon et le vouloir aussi (244); Costely: Ma douce fleur, ma marguerite (244); Tomas Janequin: Nous bergiers et nous bergieres (245); Janequin: Or sus, or sus vous dormez trop (245); Créquillon or Richafort: Or vray Dieu qu'il ennuyeux (245-46); de la Rue: Pour ung jamais ung regret me demeure (246); Janequin: S'il est si doulx par quoy n'est doncques moindre (246-47); Anonymous: Si vostre coeur prent le tenné (247); Claudin: Si vous m'aymez, donnez m'en asseurance (247); Arcadelt: S'on pouvoit acquérir (247-48).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Claude Gervaise wrote three- and four-part chansons. Those in four parts are freely composed in a progressive style while the three-part chansons use borrowed material in the tradition of earlier pedagogical tricinia. These traditional pieces are composed in one of three ways: 1. use of a cantus firmus plus completely new material; 2. combination of cantus firmus with parodied material from the model with little or no concern for originality; 3. combination of cantus firmus and parodied material with significant original contributions. Gervaise's three-part compositions fall in this last category. Gervaise may have learned these particular borrowing techniques from Thilman Susato's Premier livre of 1544. Gervaise wrote these chansons for the inexperienced singer yet retained his artistic integrity in the process. Like no other composer of sixteenth-century chansons, Gervaise borrows his material according to a consistent set of compositional principles.

Works: Gervaise: Aultant que moy (366), Mon Pencement (367), M'amye est tant honneste (368), Au temps heureux (369), D'Amour me plains (369), Si l'on doibt prendre (370), Las! je sçay bien (370).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Tylman Susato's Premier and Tiers livres à 2 ou à 3 parties include approximately fifty chansons that derive their material from preexistent sources. The models for Susato's cantus firmus chansons come from Flemish, Italian, and Parisian prints; from compositions for two voices or four; from both polyphonic and homophonic compositions; and from composers as divergent as Josquin des Prez and Claudin de Sermisy as well as Susato himself. Susato modifies the cantus firmus to suit the needs of his new composition. While retaining most cadential schemes from his models, Susato feels free to change some cadences to fit the logic of his new piece. He borrows from the lower voices of his models as well, using parody to highlight tension or stability in the new piece. Unlike Gervaise [see Bernstein, "Claude Gervaise as Chanson Composer"], who demonstrates little regard for the formal implications of borrowed material, Susato takes care to emphasize the structural nature of his models.

Works: Susato: Content désir (218), Long temps y a (219), Je prens en gré (220), Mon pauvre cueur (221), Grace vertu (222), Puisque j'ay perdu mes amours (229-30).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Chansons rustiques existed in both monophonic and polyphonic versions. Few sixteenth-century chansons rustiques survive, although some of the popular monophonic tunes can be reconstructed from polyphonic chansons that incorporate the original. These preexisting tunes are most often found as a cantus firmus in the tenor of the new work, with or without new text added to the free voices; as two cantus firmi in canon surrounded by new material; as a cantus firmus in the superius; or paraphrased in multiple voices. Polyphonic chansons rustiques prior to 1500 show more contrast between the new and preexistent material, while those after 1500 integrate imitation more carefully. Composed works in this manner indicate that the division between popular and courtly style was beginning to dissolve.

Index Classifications: 1400s, 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Chansons spirituelles were spiritual songs encouraged and disseminated by the Calvinists for performance in the home. Except for one collection, all extant chansons spirituelles are in the form of text, meant to be set to well-known secular songs. The exception is a collection by Jacques Buus from 1550. Four of his pieces are based on preexisting works. In these chansons Buus's method of composition involves the reshaping of a tune by compression or fragmentation, which is then surrounded by new material. In an earlier secular chanson anthology (1543), Buus parodies eight models. Typically, he either quotes the existing material exactly and surrounds it with new material, or treats each voice as a model to be paraphrased, with one in particular dominating.

Works: Buus: A toy Seigneur (158), Chantons de cueur (158), Christ souffrit peine (157), Pour ung plaisir (157), Content desir (164), Vivre ne puis content (164), Ces fascheaux sotz (164), Doulce mémoire (164), Dieu vous gard (165).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies, Sergio Bezerra

Two works titled L'alouette: Or sus vous dormez trop, an anonymous three-part chanson printed by Antico in 1520 and a four-part chanson by Janequin printed by Attaingnant in 1528, share the same text and much musical material. The three-part piece, circulated widely in the early sixteenth century, must have been known to Janequin. Janequin's four-part version has voice crossing problems between the contratenor and superius. It itself may have existed previously as a three-part work, later to be rewritten in haste for Attaingnant's publication. Included in the contratenor of Janequin's four-part work is a quotation of his own Le chant des oyseaux. Through their use of bird-song these pieces bring elements of the popular chanson rustique into the courtly program chanson.

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

The many versions of Pierre Sandrin's "Doulce mémoire" reveal the concept of competitive setting amongst Renaissance composers. First published ca. 1537-8, Sandrin's piece spawned many textual and musical parodies. The textual parodies include: a "response" by Certon which draws heavily on the text and rhyme scheme of the original; numerous contrafacta, especially for spiritual purposes; and references in the French theatre. There are at least ten musical parodies: two- and three-part versions, likely meant for pedagogical purposes, as well as four- and six-part settings. Its material is used in Mass and Magnificat settings by Clemens non Papa, Cipriano da Rore, and Orlando de Lassus. Lastly, "Doulce mémoire" was turned into many instrumental intabulations and divisions.

Works: Francesco de Layolle: Doulce mémoire (93-4); Pierre de Manchicourt: Doulce mémoire (94); Antoine Gardane: Doulce mémoire (95); Josquin Baston: Doulce mémoire (95); Anonymous: Doulce mémoire (95); Buus: Doulce mémoire (95-6); Clemens non Papa: Magnificat primi toni; Cipriano da Rore: Mass on Doulce mémoire; Lassus: Missa ad imitationem moduli Doulce mémoire.

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Duo and trio chansons are usually derived from the text and top part of a chanson for four parts. Au pres de vous is typical. First appearing as a four-part piece in Attaingnant's collection Chansons nouvelles (1528), it was reprinted by Attaingnant and others several times in this format. Later it was substantially reworked in fewer-voice arrangements. As Heartz points out, "A composition of such neatness and clarity, such concision and elegance of detail, offered perfect grist for the arranger's mill." A three-part version from an incomplete publication of Attaingnant, later copied into Moderne's Parangon . . . Quart livre (1539) includes the original superius surrounded by two canonic parts. A duo arrangement in Rhaw's second book of Bicinia also may come from a previous Attaingnant publication, the missing Quarante et quatre chansons à deux, ou duo, chose delectable aux fleustes (1529). Like the three-part arrangement, this duo keeps the superius intact and adds a lower voice that derives much of its material from the original tenor. These few-voiced chansons were meant for the growing market of amateur players and singers.

Works: various anonymous: Au pres de vous.

Sources: Sermisy: Au pres de vous.

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

There are more settings of "Susanne un jour" preserved in manuscripts and publications than of any other sixteenth-century secular text in any language. Almost all use the same melody, Didier Lupi Second's Susanne un jour, a chanson spirituelle intended for devotional use amongst Protestants. The settings, however, were mostly aimed at a popular audience. Lassus's 1560 setting was the most famous: reprinted and set for instruments more than any other setting, it also reached the largest audience in the most countries. Other settings in the "Susanne" complex would have played on the listener's or performer's acquaintance with the original model or other settings. Each composer used the "Susanne" model in a different way. To determine how or why an individual piece borrows, settings may be inspected in the following ways: (1) relation to the Lupi model; (2) relation to other pieces in the complex (including borrowing from one setting to another, or the purposeful use of a new technique of setting); (3) position within a "style, period or milieu"; (4) position in the composer's output. "Susanne" settings present the sixteenth-century polyphonic chanson in microcosm.

Works: Orlando de Lassus, Susanne un jour (382, 386, 388-89); Millot, Susanne un jour (387-88, 392); Claude le Jeune, Susanne un jour (389-91); Monte, Susanne un jour (392); Rore, Susanne un jour (393); François Rousell (393-95); Nicholas de la Grotte, Susanne un jour (395-96); Andreas Papius, Susanne un jour (396-97, 405-08).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies

Three collections of Brunettes (mostly songs about shepherdesses with brown hair) from the press of Christophe Ballard in 1703, 1704, and 1711 show the transition from modal to tonal systems of composition in France. Ballard's pieces were assembled from popular airs serieux, airs à danser, and chansonettes from the previous century. Ballard brought them up to date by simplifying melodies, altering texts, and composing bass lines for the songs. In composing bass lines for the once monophonic chansons à danser and creating new bass lines for the rest of the polyphonic pieces, he adjusted modal organizations that had become outdated. Too this end, accidentals were changed, and cadences and their preparations were altered as well. Individual modes were turned into major or minor systems, each in its own unique way. By comparing both versions, we can see what Ballard considered to be essential modernizations. These Brunettes then served as the basis for further revisions by composers Dandrieu and Montéclair later in the century. Thus several versions of the same song can be examined over a large span of time.

Works: Anonymous: J'entends le voix de la belle Climene (191); La jeune Bergere Anette (192); Nous nirons plus aux champs Brunete (195); L'amour n'est jamais sans peines (197); Dans un Bois (200); Quand on a tant d'amour (202); O beau jardin ou l'Art et Nature (205).

Index Classifications: 1700s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies