Chantilly Codex

Chantilly Codex
The chanson Belle, Bonne, Sage by Baude Cordier, written in the shape of a heart, with a red note coloration string of notes forming another heart.

The Chantilly Codex (Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 564) is a manuscript of medieval music containing pieces from the style known as the Ars subtilior. It is held in the museum at the Château de Chantilly in Chantilly, Oise.

Most of the compositions in the Chantilly Codex date from ca. 1350-1400. There are 112 pieces total, mostly by French composers, and all of them polyphonic. The codex contains examples of many of the most popular courtly dance styles of its time, such as ballades, rondeaus, virelais, and isorhythmic motets. Some of the motets are rhythmically extremely complex, and are written in intricately exact musical notation. Two pieces by Baude Cordier were added at a slightly later date at the front of the manuscript, and use unusual shapes to reflect their musical contents. The piece "Belle, Bonne, Sage" (image right) is a play on words on the "Cor" ("heart") in "Cordier".

The Chantilly Codex is known to contain music from the composers Johannes Symonis, Jehan Suzay, Pierre de Molins, Goscalch, Solage, Baude Cordier, Grimace, Guillaume de Machaut, Jean Vaillant, Franciscus Andrieu, Cunelier, Trebor, and Senleches.

Editions

Most of the 112 pieces are found in Willi Apel, ed., French Secular Compositions of the Fourteenth Century (American Institute of Musicology, 1970)[1]

Selected Recordings

The following recordings include selections from the 112 pieces:

  • Ensemble Organum (Marcel Pérès, dir.). Codex Chantilly: Airs de cour du XIVe siècle. Arles: Harmonia Mundi, 1987. CD recording HMC 901252.
  • Ensemble P. A. N. Ars Magis Subtiliter: Secular Music of the Chantilly Codex''. San Francisco: New Albion, 1989. CD recording NA 021.
  • Medieval Ensemble of London (Peter Davies and Timothy Davies, dir. Ce diabolic chant: Ballades, Rondeaus & Virelais of the Late Fourteenth Century. ) Florilegium Series. London: Éditions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1983. LP recording DSDL 704; Reissued 2007 on L’Oiseau-Lyre CD 475 9119.
  • New London Consort (Philip Pickett, dir.). Ars subtilior. Glasgow, Scotland: Linn Records, 1998. CD recording CKD 039.
  • De Caelis Codex Chantilly dir. Laurence Brisset. Aeon 2010.

References and further reading

  1. ^ Emfaq
  • Günther, Ursula (ed.). The Motets of the Manuscripts Chantilly, Musée condé, 564 (olim 1047) and Modena, Biblioteca Estense, a. M. 5, 24 (olim lat. 568). Corpus mensurabilis musicae 39. [n.p.]: American Institute of Musicology, 1965.
  • Günther, Ursula. "Unusual Phenomena in the Transmission of Late Fourteenth-Century Polyphonic Music". Musica disciplina 38 (1984)
  • [Kloster Neustift/Novacella, 1982] Musik im kirchlichen, höfischen und städtischen Leben vom 13. bis 15. Jahrhundert
  • Günther, Ursula. "Sources, MS, VII: French polyphony 1300–1420" in Grove Music Online (Accessed October 9, 2006), (subscription access)
  • Haggh, Barbara. "Contemplating the Chantilly Codex". Early Music 30, no. 2 (May 2002): 264–69.
  • Hoppin, Richard H. Medieval Music. The Norton Introduction to Music History. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0-393-09090-6
  • Plumley, Yolanda. "An 'Episode in the South'? Ars Subtilior and the Patronage of French Princes". Early Music History: Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Music 22 (2003): 103–68.
  • Upton, Elizabeth Randell. "The Chantilly codex ('F-CH' 564): The Manuscript, Its Music, Its Scholarly Reception". PhD diss. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2001.
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