Tristre plaisir et douloureuse joie. Die Stimme der Melancholie in der französischen Chanson des 15. jahrhunderts

Abstract

In the late Middle Ages, melancholy was often regarded as a pathological disease to which music provided the cure; music, by its very nature, being exhilarating and of a convivial nature. Even Marsilio Ficino, who almost single-handedly re-evaluated the state of melancholy as being the sign of a great genius, used music only to soften his melancholic mind, not to conjure melancholy up. But in the literary and musical practice of the French chanson during the fifteenth century, melancholy was regarded as a kind of idolorous joy long before Ficino published his influential treatises — and music served as a means of the first importance to cultivate (and relish) one’s own melancholy. This is shown by a discussion of texts by Guillaume de Machaut, Alain Chartier, Jean Froissart or Rene d’Anjou, but primarily through an analysis of some of the most important chansons of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century: Gilles Binchois’ Tristre plaisir (on a text by Alain Chartier); Pierre de la Rue’s Pourquoy non and Josquin Desprez’ Plaine de deuil and Nimphes, nappes/Circumdederunt me. Not only the texts by themselves but the specific ways in which their musical settings ›tune‹ them, give voice(s) to their lyrical subjects, are analysed in various ways.