The harp in 13th-century France

This beautiful song is both a Spring song and a praise to the Virgin Mary. It is attributed to the Trouvère Jacques de Cambrai. Its simple but beautiful melody and clear structure make it an ideal piece for our work.
In this session participants will learn to play the piece, starting from the original notation and discussing aspects of rhythmization and text pronunciation. We will try out different options to create a drone or bourdon-like accompaniment to the melody.

Expanding on our work from session 1, we will delve further into transforming this song into a harp piece. Participants will explore applying melodic ornaments to the melody and we will improvise or compose new material inspired by the piece, to use as preludes, interludes or postludes

The Manuscrit du Roi contains a very interesting group of Estampies, monodic instrumental pieces. Again starting from the original notation, participants will learn to play the Quinte Estampie Real. We will then discuss how to create an accompanying voice for this piece, between movable drones, parallel voices and the creation of an easy 'Tenor' line.

In this session we will work on the structure of the Estampie itself. The piece is composed in several different sections or puncti; we will analyze how the different puncti are written and compose or improvise new sections fitting with the existing material. 

When discussing French 13th century repertoire, it is impossible to leave out the major musical phenomenon that is the polyphony flourishing in Notre-Dame. At the same time, it is an open question to which extent this evidently vocal repertoire could have had an equivalent on the harp.
Participants will study part of an 'Alleluya' clausula from the Florence manuscript. In this session we will concentrate on the original material - how to best choose fingerings, when to repeat the held tenor notes, how to best bring the livelier two-voice passages to life.

In this last session we will try out different ways of using our Alleluya as a basis for an instrumental piece. We will reinforce the tenor line, adapt the melody if needed and make our own adaptation of a plainchant section.