"When I see Winter Return"

[Olivier Bettens]

Bedier's edition of Colin Muset give two verses :

Quant je voi yver retorner,
Lors me voudroie sejorner.
Se je pooie oste trover
Large, qui ne vousist conter,
Qu'eüst porc et buef et monton,
Maslarz, faisanz et venoison,
Grasses gelines et chapons
Et bons fromages en glaon,

Et la dame fust autresi
Cortoise come li mariz
Et touz jors feïst mon plesir
Nuit et jor jusqu'au mien partir,
Et li hostes n'en fust jalous,
Ainz nos laissast sovent touz sous,
Ne seroie pas envious
De chevauchier toz bo[o]us*
Après mauvais prince angoissoux.

*This line is hyposyllabic. Beck proposes : "toz [jors] boüs". Jeanroy
"toz besoignus".

Cangé seems to be the only source and the attribution to Colin is doubtful.

*Olivier Bettens - Cossonay, Switzerland. obet...@worldcom.ch*
*-----------------------------------------------------------------*
*CHANTEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS ? -Le francais chante', du Moyen Age a 1750*
*DO YOU SING FRENCH? - Sung French, from Middle Ages to 1750*
* --------> http://home.worldcom.ch/obettens/ <-------- *

[Sarah Doyle]

-----Original Message-----
From: Olivier Bettens <obet...@worldcom.ch>
To: Multiple recipients of list EARLYM-L <earl...@olymp.wu-wien.ac.at>
Date: Thursday, December 03, 1998 07:43
Subject: Re: "When I see Winter Return"

Bedier's edition of Colin Muset give two verses :

Quant je voi yver retorner,
Lors me voudroie sejorner.
Se je pooie oste trover
Large, qui ne vousist conter,
Qu'eüst porc et buef et monton,
Maslarz, faisanz et venoison,
Grasses gelines et chapons
Et bons fromages en glaon,

Et la dame fust autresi
Cortoise come li mariz
Et touz jors feïst mon plesir
Nuit et jor jusqu'au mien partir,
Et li hostes n'en fust jalous,
Ainz nos laissast sovent touz sous,
Ne seroie pas envious
De chevauchier toz bo[o]us*
Après mauvais prince angoissoux.

There is one problem that I can see with this second verse. The first one
has 8 lines, whereas the second verse has 9 lines. How does this fit in
with the music? I've tried to fit it in, but have failed miserably.

Sarah Doyle

[Olivier Bettens]

Sarah Doyle wrote :

>
>There is one problem that I can see with this second verse. The first one
>has 8 lines, whereas the second verse has 9 lines. How does this fit in
>with the music? I've tried to fit it in, but have failed miserably.
>

You have two solutions :

- Remove a line of the second strophe : the only one that could be removed
without distorting the grammary and the meaning is "Ainz nos lessast sovent
touz sous". But such surgery is not, IMO, really satisfying...

- Add a musical line : the scheme of the text of the first verse is
aaaabbbb (each letter designates a different rhyme). The music is ABABCCAB
(each letter designates a different musical phrase). The scheme of the
second verse is ccccddddd. The most immediate solution is to set the music
ABABCCCAB, repeating one more time the central phrase.

[Natalie Mayer of the many preoccupations]

> There is one problem that I can see with this second verse. The first one
> has 8 lines, whereas the second verse has 9 lines. How does this fit in
> with the music? I've tried to fit it in, but have failed miserably.

My guess is to repeat a fragment of the music, kind of like those two
extraneous lines in "A chantar m.er" at the very end. But that's only a
guess... You're looking at the wrong person here :)
nm

Natalie Mayer, back in the claws of real life.
No longer old and crappy: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~nmayer
"An opera with a lead character named Max can't be so bad"
-M. Chodos (Venezuelan Cowboy) on that Weber opera