Luogo e data di registrazione		Evangelische Kirche, Séon (Svizzera) - 7-9 giugno 1977
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Johann-Nikolaus Matthes
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 065-30 941 Q - (1 lp) - durata 50' 05" - (p) 1978 - Analogico (Quadraphonic)
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 63417 2 - (1 cd) - durata 49' 59" - (c) 1990 - ADD
	Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26510 2 - (1 cd) - durata 49' 58" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

CANSÓS DE TROBAIRITZ It was on a spring day, I had just finished my lecture at the Barcelona University Institute of Romance Studies, when two visitors called, a gentleman and a lady. He had a firm voice and a penetrating eye, she talked gently and had a dreamy glance. They were Jordi Savall and Montserrat Figueras who had come with the intention of adding some troubadour-songs to their already considerable repertoires. Being artists with a highly refined sense of musical subtleties they had not failed to see where the problem lay: the love songs of the troubadours are, naturally the lyrical expression of a man’s passion; consequently they lose a certain quality and give a somewhat oddly artificial impression when sung by a woman, the more so if the singer is a soprano. (It is true that the jongleurs are supposed to have sung with somewhat forced and extremely highpitched voices, similar to the countertenors of our day, but this did not interfere with their credibility: they were men, and sang of a man’s passion for a woman.) Montserrat put the problem to me right away: “Would it be possible to fill a whole long-playing record of over forty-five minutes’ duration solely with songs of the trobairitz?" This is to say, with works of some of the eighteen women whose names have been handed down to us - of only eighteen of a great number of female singers who, like their male colleagues, used to practise the art of trobar at the courts of Western Europe. My first professorial answer was “no”. It was not possible. Of the 236 surviving melodies of the troubadours known to us, 43 different authors in all, only one, namely A chantar m-er de so q’ieu no voldria, was written by a trobairitz, the mysterious Condesa de Dia. Therefore I suggested something different: a recording of songs of Catalan troubadours, or a selection of the most famous works of that period, or of such songs as had not yet been issued on record. “Later...", they replied with undisguised disappointment. When Jordi and Montserrat left me that day they looked a little sad. So I made up my mind to make the impossible possible and try to oblige them, but not altogether for altruistic reasons. I myself had begun to be fascinated by the idea of hearing women’s songs from Occitania performed after so many centuries of silence, sung, too, by the voice of a woman who had a natural affinity to them, both spiritually and geographically - a Catalan singer. I had the idea of taking full advantage of the immense possibilities which arise out of the common medieval practice of borrowing melodies for a given piece of poetry. This was a widely practised, if little known custom (of the 2542 surviving works of the troubadours, 514 are securely, and another 70 in all likelihood, reckoned to be imitations of borrowings with respect to their melodies). Besides, I intended to adopt the legitimate method of having the dialogic songs sung by two vocalists, the part of the man by a male voice, that of the woman by a female one. Thus we arrived at a total number of seven compositions - the record had been made possible, and Montserrat and Jordi were overjoyed. Together we made a thorough study of the texts (at German and Catalan Universities they teach the traditional pronunciation which differs in some points from the pronunciation common in France), rehearsing began - and here now is the result. Three of the selected works were written by the Condesa de Dia, that mysterious woman who is still a puzzle to the scholars (whether she lived in the late 12th or in the early 13th century, is controversial). She was one of the great poetesses of all times, one of the women who, with vehemence, passion and veracity, have sung the praises of carnal love. (Let us call to mind that courtly love as praised by the troubadours was of an essentially adulterous character, and that the Condesa herself was a married woman.) Her Estat ai en greu cossirier probably used the melody of Lonc tems ai agut consiriers by Raimon de Miraval (a troubadour who has been proved to have lived between 1191 and 1229). Ab joi et ab joven m’apais, which features the by no means simple technique of the rims derivatius (derived rhymes), was definitely performed on the melody of Estat ai com hom esperdutz of the great Bernart de Ventadorn (third quarter of the 12th century). Finally, both the text and the melody of A chantar m·er de so q’ieu no voldria were written, according to the cancioners, by the Condesa de Dia herself. Vos que·m semblatz dels corals amadors is a short tenson (poetic dialogue) or, more accurately, a dialogic sequence of two simple coblas or stanzas. The first was written by the Condesa de Provenza Garsenda, the wife of Count Alfonso II (established between 1193 and 1215), the second by the troubadour Gui de Cavaillon (first quarter of the 13th century). As a rule this type of lyrical dialogue would borrow the melody of a popular and widely known canso. In this instance the source of origin of the melody was Jamais nul tems no·m pot ja far Amors by the Troubadour Gaucelm Faidit from Limousin (established between 1172 and 1203). Na Carenza al bel cors avinen is a rather peculiar tenson between two sisters (or nuns?), N'Alais and Na Yselda, who in our version sing the first stanza and the repeat together and in unison, and Na Carenza who sings the second stanza alone. The two sisters enquire whether marriage would be advisable, giving a precise description of the consequences. Na Carenza earnestly advises them to enter a convent. The melody used here is the very famous tune of La grans beutatz e·l fis ensenhamens of which no less than eighteen melodic imitations have been handed down to us - a clear testimony to the lasting success and great popularity of this canso by Arnaut de Maruelh, a troubadour from Périgord (last quarter ofthe 12th century). Si us quer conselh, bel'ami' Alamanda is one of the most famous compositions of Guirot de Bornelh from Limousin whose literary activities have been established between 1162 and 1199. The piece under notice is a tenson or dialogue between the troubadour and Alamanda, the maid of his adored one. He insists that she should bring about a reconciliation between him and her lady. Everything indicates that this tenson is fictitious and serves merely as a literary pretext which is worked out with great charme and a good deal of irony. The music is by Guirot himself (which would not have been the case, had the tenson been an authentic dialogue) and was widely used and frequently imitated by other troubadours. S’anc fui belha ni prezada by Cadenet (first third of the 13th century) is one of the most famous albas (morning songs) ever written; its music was even borrowed for one of the cantigas of King Alfonso X the Learned. It is a dialogue between a lady (first and last stanzas) who complains about her husband and declares that she intends to stay with her lover until dawn, and the guardian over her love (second, third and fourth stanzas) who assures her of his faithful services while she is with her lover. Francisco Noy Translation: Jürgen Dohm How the Troubadour songs were handed down Only in four of the approximately 30 Troubadour manuscripts of the 13th and early 14th centuries a part of the contents has been handed down with Troubadour manuscript could have at his disposal originate on the one hand in the medieval chorale and on the other hand in the polyphony which developed from this - this latter had its centre in Paris, i. e. at some distance geographically and culturally speaking from the ‘Lebensraum’ of the Troubadours. Music which has developed and has been handed down through oral tradition only is not easily written down in a system of notation whose symbols have been formed through confrontation with a different type of music and unavoidably reflect its characteristics. This is what happened with the Troubadour songs. The situation becomes even more difficult if one assumes that the Troubadour melodies are foreign to the written down repertoire and are subject to other - such as Spanish and Arabic - influences. This would produce an additional conflict: music which - as we must assume - was subject to other rules and conventions than the ones of Northern France might possibly have had striking qualities such as details of voice production (for instance different types of guttural sounds) or other tonalities would be impossible to reproduce within the conventions of notation of that period. The many empty staves in the manuscripts are, as it were, a reflection of this conflict. Under these circumstances the existing melodies for the Troubadour poems are only those which were close to the repertoire which was "writable" (i. e. the chorale and the music of Notre-Dame), or those which, through the process of writing down with such notation methods, were adapted and therefore modified. Each musical source therefore reflects the particular situation of a melody which consists in the fact that it has been written down at all; it stabilises the melody in a form which could possibly be very different from the different ways in which it was previously sung and which were never written down. It is further possible that the linking-up of the text and music could sometimes only take place at the time of writing down; this suggests itself when we consider the A chantar m·er de so q’ieu no voldria of the Condesa de Dia (No.6). This poem is recorded with melody in Manuscript W, a manuscript containing mostly Trouvere-songs which came into existence about 100 years later than the songs of the Condesa (1150-1175). In this version the Provencal poem shows French influences. In this case only the change of the end syllable -ens in the last lineto -ence is important and with it the resulting change in the number of syllables:     A chantar m·er deso q’ieu no voldria,     tant me rancur de lui cui sui amia     car eu l’am mais que nuilla ren que sia;     vas lui no·m val merces ni cortesia,     ni ma beltatz, ni mos pretz, ni mos sens,     c’artressi·m sui enganad’e trahia     cum degr'essen s’ieu fos desavinens. The melody only makes sense with this French-style ending, for in the last line it takes up the melody of the 2nd and 4th lines - linked to 11 syllables - while the last line of the Provencal text is connected with the 10 syllables of the 5th line. The following pattern shows the fundamental difference in the forms of text and music:     Provencal / French     Rhymes / Melody     a / a     a / b     a / a     a / b     ----------     b / c     a / d     b / b We can see from this that the form of the French melody does not fit the text. It is possible that the music already existed before it became linked up with the text; and this at a time when the latter was already being interpreted in a French manner. All this shows that the link between text and music was looser than we are accustomed to nowadays and that we do not have to proceed from the idea of a necessarily inseparable union between the two. As the texts were the decisive criterion in the choice of songs for this recording - all texts are spoken partly or completely by women - it was found that only three of these poems were handed down with a melody (Nos. 4, 6, 7). The melodies for the others were all taken from Troubadour songs with the same structure of verse lines and stanzas; a procedure very possible with the above mentioned freedom between text and music. Usually, however, the poems of the Troubadours show a very individual form. Only in a few cases existing poems were imitated in form and rhyme. Therefore it was not often possible to take over a melody. As an exception 18 more poems exist in the form of the famous La grans beutatz e·l fis ensaenhamens by Arnaut de Maruelh. His melody was taken over for Na Carenza al bel cors avinen (No. 3). The Troubadour songs have been handed down in notations which restrict themselves to stating the pitch and the grouping of notes above the syllables; length is not indicated. Because of this ‘openness‘ in the notation there are many different opinions concerning the rhythmical interpretation of these melodies. Fundamentally we can distinguish two opposite ways of reading: An older interpretation subjects the whole of the Troubadour repertoire to the rules of modal rhythmics, i.e. it uses, according to the structure of the verse, one of the patterns of the modal theory of the thirteenth century which is repeated throughout the whole poem. Against this theory it can be pointed out that it bases itself on the date of the creation of the manuscripts and that the time interval as regards the origin of most of the poems is not taken into consideration. A further and more important argument is that the rhythmical regularity of the modes is in contrast to the irregular groupings, particularly of the melismatic melodies. More modern considerations stress the distance of time, place and social  surroundings between the theory of modes and the ‘Lebensraum’ of the Troubadours which makes such a direct connection of the two unlikely. During the last years, therefore, the opinion has become accepted that the melodies should be performed in a rhythmically free manner. Either the recitation of the text is made the determining factor and the melody is made subject to it, or the melody derives its manner of performance from its own impulses - of course taking into consideration that the text must be understandable. A modern interpreter has to decide between these possibilities. A decision for a modal interpretation can in some cases be justified, i.e. where it seems to suggest itself by a strong syllabic connection between language and music and by semi-tonal melodics. The best way of doing justice to this situation is an openminded approach to the question of rhythmics in the Troubadour melodies, giving the option of a new decision for each individual piece - rather than a firm laying down of one of the rhythmical theories. The use of instruments for the accompaniment of the songs is even more dependent on the decisions and the creativeness of the performers. There are no concrete pointers to the way in which the instruments were used and to what they played. Neither do the Provencal texts themselves give any clues. Any attempt at reconstructions is lost in the vacuum of the tradition. In modern performances the use of a wide range of instruments has become widely accepted, the various instruments being more or less similar to the ones found in the miniatures of medieval manuscripts. A change of accent in the performance is very noticeable: The stress lies not on the performance of the text but rather on the musical arrangement of a Troubadour song. This is probably a concession to modern audiences who in most cases do not understand the language and who perhaps on the whole have a different attitude to language and poetry than the audiences of the Middle Ages. Thus every new confrontation with the poetry of the Troubadours is dependent on present day conditions and is shaped by the knowledge and experience of each interpreter, his musical empathy, his weighing up of questions concerning the relationship of text and music, rhythmics and instrumentation. What makes each performance fascinating is therefore never its historical authenticity; rather the seriousness of its confrontation with the tradition, the quality of performance and, last not least, the musical directness which is never or always “historical”. Karin Paulsmeier Translation: P. H. Linnemann
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"