Diplomatic Transcriptions of Medieval Music

Rondeaux et Virelais I is the first volume in Ut Orpheus's new series Opus Artis Novae, whose mission is to present editions of medieval polyphony in diplomatic transcription, that is, in the original notation. This volume includes a selection of works from MS J.II.9 (commonly referred to as TuB) located in the Biblioteca nazionale universitaria, Turin. Other offerings in the series include an edition of ballades in TuB, as well as plans for a second volume of rondeaux and virelais from TuB, and two volumes from the Codex Canonici Miscellaneous 213 (Bologna, Biblioteca universitaria)—Du Fay's pieces, and the chansons bourguignonnes, respectively.

Rondeaux et Virelais I represents the first new edition of the pieces in TuB since Richard Hoppin's landmark edition of the entire Turin manuscript fifty years ago in The Cypriot-French Repertory of the Manuscript Torino, Biblioteca nazionale, J.II.9 (4 vols., Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, 21 [Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1960-63]). Hoppin was the preeminent scholar of this repertoire following his 1952 dissertation on the motets from TuB ("The Motets of the Early 15th Century MS. J.II.9 in the Biblioteca nazionale, Turin" [Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1952]). This fascinating repertoire has remained comparatively unexplored since then, and only a handful of recordings and a few scholarly articles have been devoted to specific aspects of this collection. The 1990s saw a resurgence of interest in TuB, exemplified by a conference in 1992, the proceedings of which were published in The Cypriot-French Repertory of the Manuscript Torino J.II.9: Report of the International Musicological Congress, Paphos 20-25 March, 1992 (Ludwig Finscher and Ursula Günther, eds., Musicologi cal Studies & Documents, 45 [Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology, 1995]). A full-color facsimile edition was published in 1999 (Isabella Fragalà Data and Karl Kügle, eds., Il codice J.II.9: Torino, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria, Ars Nova, 4 [Lucca: Libreria Musicale Italiana, 1999]).

The MS Torino J.II.9 is a unique collection in the history of medieval polyphony because all of the music copied within it are both anonymous and unica. The creation of TuB can be linked to Janus's reign (r. 1398-1432) by the front flyleaf which contains an abstract from a papal bull of John XXIII responding to Janus's request for the creation of an Office to St. Hilarion. Although long believed to have been written in Cyprus, the works bear no resemblance to traditional Cypriot music, which gathers its style mainly from Ancient Greek and Byzantine sources. The pieces, instead, are stylistically related to the contemporary French ars subtilior repertoire from the Continent.

The continental influence on Cyprus began when the island was wrested from Greek control by Richard the Lionheart in 1191. In the following year, Richard sold the island to the recently dispossessed king of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan. Following Guy's death in 1194, his brother Aimery de Lusignan was elected king, thus beginning over 250 years of French rule, which ended when Venetians assumed control of the island in 1489. Thus, the ruling class of Cyprus was "in effect an ex-patriate French dynasty" (Andrew Wathey, "European Politics and Musical Culture at the Court of Cyprus," in The Cypriot-French Repertory Manu script Torino J.II.9, p. 33). Peter I of Cyprus (r. 1359-1369) is the most widely known of the Lusignan kings, having been written about in Guillaume de Machaut's poem La prise d'Alexandrie. Peter spent two months visiting the papal court in Avignon, and nearly a year in Venice in 1365. Three years...