Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye 3v · Walter Frye or Gilles Binchois
Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:
*Laborde ff. 11v-12 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v Frye (added ascription) PDF · Facsimile
*Leuven ff. 39v-41 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v PDF · Facsimile
*Nivelle ff. 26v-27 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v Binchois PDF · Facsimile
*Wolfenbüttel ff. 4v-5 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v PDF · Facsimile
Other musical sources:
Berlin 78.C.28 ff. 29v-30 »T« 3v
Florence 2356 ff. 63v-64 »Tout a par moy afin qu’on ne me voye« 3v
Cape 3.b.12 ff. 84v-85 »Com defecerunt ligna [De tous biens plaine]« 3v
New Haven 91 ff. 45v-46 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v Frye · Facsimile
Paris 2973 ff. 40v-42 »Tout a par moy affin qu’on ne me voye« 3v · Facsimile
Paris 4379 ff. 18v-19 »Tout a par moy afin qu’on ne me voie« 3v
Reworkings, citations and intabulation, see Fallows 1999 pp. 386-387.
Edition: Gutiérrez-Denhoff 1988 no. 4 (Wolfenbüttel).
Text: Rondeau cinquain; full text in Laborde, Leuven, Nivelle and Wolfenbüttel, also with full text in Paris 4379 and Paris 2973; also found in Berlin 78.B.17 f 83, ed.: Löpelmann 1923 p. 121, Paris 2798 f. 71, Jardin 1501 f. 77.
The poem according to Wolfenbüttel:
Tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye, Pensez quel deul mon desplaisir m’envoye, tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye. Et non pourtant, se mourir en devoye (2) Tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye, |
All alone, that nobody sees me, Think of what grief my sorrow sends me, all alone, that nobody sees me. But nevertheless, if I should die All alone, that nobody sees me, |
|
1) Laborde, line 8, “… briefvement m’occye”; Nivelle, “… brief je ne m’occie” |
|
|
After Leuven (female): Tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye, Las, ung temps fut que heureuse me tenoye tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye. Car j’ay perdu ce que tant cher avoye, (1) Tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye, Car j’ay perdu a si que tant chier avoye, dont ne m’atens pour nesune que voye jamais de rien me trouver resjouye, mais languir jusque tant que desvye mon deul tenant sans avoir bien ne joye. |
All alone, that nobody sees me, Alas, there was a time when I was happy all alone, that nobody sees me. Because I have lost what I had most dear, All alone, that nobody sees me, |
Further differences in spelling appear in the sources.
Evaluation of the sources:
The rondeau ascribed to Binchois as well as to Frye was probably quite old when copied into the four chansonniers by their main scribes. The copies were certainly made from different exemplars and differ in many details even if they just like the later sources listed above essentially transmit the same version of the song. Wolfenbüttel, Laborde and Leuven are closer to each other than to Nivelle, but even these show up many differences, some of them errors, but we also find examples of attempts to improve on the then old-fashioned counterpoint. The poem copied by the Leuven scribe has been transformed from the traditional male complaint into a female one by changing the gender of the refrain (tresdolant/tresdolente, seul/seulle) and uses a different couplet and tierce. This female version of the poem apparently had some circulation. We find the same short couplet added to the poem after the tierce in Chansonnier Cordiforme (Paris 2973) by the main scribe as some sort of alternative text, and in Laborde the gender-neutral tierce of the Leuven version has replaced the original text; also the poetry manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, ms. Rothschild 2798 (Paris 2798) brings this tierce along with another, different couplet.
Nivelle’s ascription to Binchois is of course authoritative but so is the ascription to Frye in the Mellon Chansonnier (New Haven 91). And the ascription, also to Frye, which was added above the song in Laborde, may have been added before several of the later sources were initiated – it was supplied by the so-called Index-scribe II (cf. Alden 1999, pp. 79-81). Modern musicology tends to prefer Frye as composer of the rondeau.
In Wolfenbüttel the main scribe offers this unhappy song without any accidentals even if nearly every single B in it needs flattening. The shape of the melodious structural voices and the frequent movements between Bs and Fs and not least the dejected tone of the poem must have been considered adequate guidance to ensure the performance – Florence 2356 and Paris 4379 lean in the same direction with only a few accidental flats in the upper voice.
The Laborde scribe signed the first staff of the tenor with a flat and provided bb. 5-20 of the superius with accidental b’-flats; Paris 2973 and Berlin 78.B.17 followed this pattern with a one flat key signature in the tenor and accidentals in the upper voice. Only Nivelle and the Mellon Chansonnier adhered to the much more common setup with one flat signatures in both lower voices and no signature in the superius. Leuven chansonnier went all the way by prescribing a one-flat key signature in all three voices. It is most probable that now disappeared older sources for this song was without any signatures and that different scribe more or less hesitantly added the signatures during its transmission.
Nivelle, Leuven and Laborde share an error in the contratenor (b. 12, d in stead of c), but are else quite different in details, for example, Nivelle amd Leuven have d in bar 2.2 in the contratenor (like Paris 4379 and New Haven 91), slightly less dissonant than the e in other sources. Characteristic variants are found where the composer plays with the triple meter by introducing groups of two semibreves helped by coloration. For example in the contratenor in bars 9-12: here the tenor in Wolfenbüttel, Leuven and Laborde (like Paris 2973 and Paris 4379) goes against this tendency by introducing its syncopated line “que plus je …” on a brevis in bar 10.3; this effect is somewhat normalized in Nivelle (along with New Haven 97, Florence 2356 and Berlin 78.B17), which moves the entry of the tenor to bar 11.1 filling out bar 10 with a rest. And in bars 27-28 Leuven and Wolfenbüttel have a fine interplay between superius in triple meter and the double tenor; this is normalized in Laborde by removing the tenor’s coloration, while Nivelle keeps up the rhythmical tension between the parts, but suppresses the upbeat in the superius (b. 27.3). Leuven, Wolfenbüttel and Nivelle (and most other sources) let the contratenor enter in bar 28 on a in unison with the tenor, before jumping to the third above the tenor; in Laborde the scribe or his exemplar has changed the harmony by entering a fifth lower, on d, and this idea is expanded in New Haven 91 to the rising line in semibreves: d-g-d’, which further burdens the harmony.
Comments on text and music:
An extremely sad poem in artful rimes using only one single sound in its riming syllables, “-ye” or “-ie”. It is set in music by the two expressive melodic lines of superius and tenor with the contratenor in a supporting role in the same range as the tenor. The structural voices unfold in long curves with a keen attention to rhythmical variety and variation of secondary motifs (cf. S bb. 4.2 ff, 19-21, 25.2-27) and use imitation at the octave and unison just before and after the medial cadence (bb. 14 ff and 22 ff). Especially memorable is the imitation at the start of the second section on the words “faisant regretz”. These four notes later became the kernel of ostinato settings by Agricola and Josquin – their emotional impact are still remembered in the first decade of the next century due to Josquin’s mass Faisant regretz.
The setting’s cadences vacillate between D and G with the medial cadence rather weakly placed on G then prolonged to A; the whole second section, however, like most of the beginning is centred on D, therefore the final on G comes a bit surprising.
The extended setting of the first line “Tout a par moy, affin qu’on ne me voye” (All alone, that nobody sees me), which first cadences on A (Phrygian) then goes on to a cadence on D, strongly invites a performance with a shortened refrain in the couplets as seen in the editions. The threat of suicide in the first couplet of the original male version of the poem assigns a new sombre weight on the following words “tout a par moy”. The female version of the poem, which is presented complete in the Leuven chansonnier, was obviously created with the male version as its model using its rime pattern in the new set of couplet and tierce. However, the new lines following the refrain do not in comparison with the original poem bring any development of the situation described.
PWCH November 2009, revised June 2017