DOI: 10.25549/usctheses-c40-357761
title: The authenticity of song: performance practice and rhetoric in the music of the troubadours

description: Extant manuscripts and modern editions of medieval troubadour songs provide the musician with little information to guide performance practice. When music notation is present, and often it is not, a four-lined staff shows a single monophonic line, absent rhythmic indications. This thesis presents a way to analyze the troubadour song within the context of the five canons of rhetoric, a model for constructing and criticizing texts, which was well known during the Medieval era. The ultimate goal is to provide the musician a framework for performance practice. ❧ The five canons of rhetoric are as follows: 1) inventio or invention, 2) dispositio or the ordering of ideas, 3) elocutio or style, 4) memoria or memory, and 5) pronunciatio or live performance. While exploring the first canon of inventio, I discuss the importance of genre in the troubadour art. Inventio concerns itself with the topic of the text, or topos. In troubadour songs, genre is defined by the subject matter such as the canso (a song about love), the pastorela (a narrative genre that describes a knight attempting to seduce a shepherd girl), and the alba (a morning song about lovers and the coming dawn). Dispositio is the ordering of ideas. Poetical treatises tell us that narratives can be ordered in different ways. All stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and troubadour songs are no different. Elocutio, or style, is the way a text is created. Within a troubadour song, elocutio encompasses poetics and melody. I analyze the poetic form of troubadour songs, the use of poetic ornaments, and how these relate to melody. During medieval times, memoria played an important role in the transmission of texts. I describe specific memory techniques used in the Middle Ages and present evidence that troubadour songs were passed down orally before being preserved in written form. ❧ With the final canon, pronunciatio, I address specific issues of performance practice. I give an overview of the proper pronunciation of the troubadour language, Old Occitan. I present medieval texts that describe instrumental accompaniment of troubadour songs and conjecture on likely playing styles, such as playing in unison with the singer or creating drones. Applying counterpoint, as in the Saint Martial school of polyphony, is also possible, as it was practiced contemporary to and in close proximity to the medieval troubadours. I discuss common theories for applying rhythm to troubadour songs, including the modal theory, the free/declamatory theory, and the isosyllabic theory. After considering these three theories, I present my own method for applying rhythm to troubadour songs. This method considers the natural speaking rhythm of oxytonic Old Occitan, applies it to the meter derived from the syllable count of troubadour versification, and then elongates certain syllables based on melismas in the melody. I also consider poetic ornaments such as the exclamatio (“Ai!”). ❧ I conclude this thesis with a discussion of authenticity and the application of historically informed performance practice to medieval music. Like performers of Baroque music, modern performers of medieval songs should consider tuning, tempo, and correct instrumentation. But more important than the application of these musical elements is the emphasis of poetics. When performing a troubadour song, I argue it is more authentic to create a performance practice based on the five canons of rhetoric. Such an approach properly prioritizes the narrative and poetics central to the art de trobar.