By performing this more than eight-hundred-year-old song about heartbreak, I encountered a tangle of musical and personal lessons. I also found that, although we live d in very different worlds, Comtessa de Dia and I share many things. For a deep dive into the sound and visual world of the medieval era, I invite you to explore this musical compilation as you read.
This collection includes sacred and secular works from the 11th to 15th Centuries, including works by Raimon de Miraval c. And by early music, I mean something both enormous and quite specific β classical music repertoire from before By early music expert, I mean someone who has focused most of their musical and scholarly efforts on the interpretation, analysis, and performance of music from this particular time period.
This professor expressed an interest in performing medieval music and was curious about my musical preparations β where did I find my sources, and how did I interpret them?
In responding to their email, I felt slightly anxious as I outlined my process. I had only sung one medieval song, once. I began my response with the ultimate apologetic qualifier, writing,. As I reread my email response over a year later, I cringed at my earnest attempt to appear transparent, as I blatantly undermined my own accomplishments. Of course, to argue even modestly against the orthodoxy of classical music expertise is an uncomfortable position to find yourself in.
All of this I understand, and I value. In the annals of music history, the troubadour and the trobairitz are credited as the first composer-poets of a non-Latin, secular song repertoire in Western continental Europe. After the dissolution of the Frankish Empire, Occitania fractured into distinct principalities, ruled by a cadre of noblemen and bishops who jockeyed for power over the region. William IX, Count of Poitiers and Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony was such a man: he successfully captured the neighboring principality of Toulouse, was excommunicated twice, served as an unsuccessful military commander in the Crusade of , and, in his greatest and most lasting achievement, wrote lyric poetry and set it to music.
