La Trobe University - Library: Medieval Music Database - Annual cycle of feasts of liturgical chant, liturgical polyphony and secular music of the late middle ages.

Pour ce que je ne say gaires

rondeau by Johannes Vaillant

Sources

Chantilly: Bibliothèque du Musèe Condè 564, fol. 26 (2/1).

Editions

1. French Secular Compositions of the Fourteenth Century, music edited by Willi Apel, texts edited by Samuel N. Rosenberg, Rome: American Institute of Musicology, 1970. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 53/I, p. 227.
2. French Secular Music. Manuscript Chantilly, Musèe Condè 564, First Part, edited by Gordon K. Greene, Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1981. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century XVIII, p. 85.

Literature

1. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Johannes Vaillant', Speculum Musicae Artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann zum 60. Geburtstag, Munich: 1970, pp. 108-182.
2. GÜNTHER, Ursula. 'Sinnbezüge zwischen Text und Musik in Ars nova und Ars subtilior', Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts, edited by U. Günther and L. Finscher, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1984, pp. 229-268.

Recordings

Matteo da Perugia: Secular Works, The Medieval Ensemble of London, directed by Peter Davies & Timothy Davies (1979): Florilegium DSLO 577 (GB).

Text

Pour ce que je ne say gaires
sui je venus pur aprendre,
donc ainsi le me faut faire
pour ce [que je ne say gaires].

Et un chascun exemplaire,
ce m'est avis, il doit prendre,
pour ce que [je ne say gaires,
sui je venus pur aprendre]

Translation

Since I know little about it,
I have come to learn;
therefore this is the way I should go about it,
Since I [know little about it].

And each should imitate me in this,
so I believe.
Since [I know little about it,
I have come to learn].
Text revision and translation © Robyn Smith