Adam de la Halle
Encyclopedia
Adam de la Halle, also known as Adam le Bossu (Adam the Hunchback) (1237?–1288) was a French-born trouvère
Trouvère
Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...
, poet and musician, whose literary and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis (poetic debates) in the style of the trouveres, polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony, and a musical play, "The Play of Robin and Marion", which is considered the earliest surviving secular French play with music. He was a member of the Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras
Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras
The Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras was a fraternity of jongleurs founded in Arras in or around 1175. As its name implies, it was intended for jongleurs and the bourgeoisie, not just the knightly class. It also did not hold poetic contests...
.
Adam's other nicknames, "le Bossu d'Arras" and "Adam d'Arras", suggest that he came from Arras, France
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...
. The sobriquet "the Hunchback
Kyphosis
Kyphosis , also called roundback or Kelso's hunchback, is a condition of over-curvature of the thoracic vertebrae...
" was probably a family name; Adam himself points out that he was not one. His father, Henri de la Halle, was a well-known Citizen of Arras, and Adam studied grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
, theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, and music at the Cistercian abbey
Abbey
An abbey is a Catholic monastery or convent, under the authority of an Abbot or an Abbess, who serves as the spiritual father or mother of the community.The term can also refer to an establishment which has long ceased to function as an abbey,...
of Vaucelles, near Cambrai
Cambrai
Cambrai is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.Cambrai is the seat of an archdiocese whose jurisdiction was immense during the Middle Ages. The territory of the Bishopric of Cambrai, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, included...
. Father and son had their share in the civil discords in Arras, and for a short time took refuge in Douai
Douai
-Main sights:Douai's ornate Gothic style belfry was begun in 1380, on the site of an earlier tower. The 80 m high structure includes an impressive carillon, consisting of 62 bells spanning 5 octaves. The originals, some dating from 1391 were removed in 1917 during World War I by the occupying...
. Adam had been destined for the church, but renounced this intention, and married a certain Marie, who figures in many of his songs, rondeaux
Rondeau (poetry)
This article is about the poetry form. For other uses, see Rondeau.A rondeau is a form of French poetry with 15 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure...
, motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s and jeux-partis
Jeu parti
Jeu parti [Fr.; Occitan joc partit, “partimen”]. A debate or dialogue in the form of a poem. According to Guilhem Molinier, the author of Las leys d'amors, a 13th-century treatise on how to write poetry in the style of the troubadours, there is a clear difference between a partimen and a tenso: in...
. Afterwards he joined the household of Robert II, Count of Artois
Robert II of Artois
Robert II was the Count of Artois, the posthumous son and heir of Robert I and Matilda of Brabant.An experienced soldier, he took part in the Aragonese Crusade and attempted an invasion of Sicily in 1287. He defeated the Flemings in 1297 at the Battle of Furnes...
; and then was attached to Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX
Louis IX of France
Louis IX , commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and...
, whose fortunes he followed in Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Italy.
At the court of Charles, after Charles became king of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, Adam wrote his Jeu de Robin et Marion
Jeu de Robin et Marion
The Jeu de Robin et Marion is reputedly the earliest French secular play with music, and is the most famous work of Adam de la Halle.The story is a dramatization of a traditional genre of medieval French song, the pastourelle. This genre typically tells of an encounter between a knight and a...
, the most famous of his works. Adam's shorter pieces are accompanied by music, of which a transcript in modern notation, with the original score, is given in Coussemaker's
Edmond de Coussemaker
Charles Edmond Henri de Coussemaker, known as Edmond de Coussemaker, born on 19 April 1805 in Belle, died on 10 January 1876 in Lille, was a schooled jurist. As a musicologist and ethnologist, he focused mainly on the heritage of French Flanders...
edition. His Jeu de Robin et Marion is cited as the earliest French play with music on a secular subject. The pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
, which tells how Marion resisted the knight, and remained faithful to Robert the shepherd, is based on an old chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
, Robin m'aime, Robin m'a. It consists of dialogue varied by refrains already current in popular song. The melodies to which these are set have the character of folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, and are more spontaneous and melodious than the more elaborate music of his songs and motets. Fétis
François-Joseph Fétis
François-Joseph Fétis was a Belgian musicologist, composer, critic and teacher. He was one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and his enormous compilation of biographical data in the Biographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today...
considered Le Jeu de Robin et Marion and Le Jeu de la feuillée forerunners of the comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
. An adaptation of Le Jeu Robin et Marion, by Julien Tiersot
Julien Tiersot
Julien Tiersot born in Bourg-en-Bresse on 5 July 1857 and died in Paris on 10 August 1936, was a French musicologist, composer and a pioneer in ethnomusicology.- Biography :...
, was played at Arras by a company from the Paris Opéra-Comique
Opéra-Comique
The Opéra-Comique is a Parisian opera company, which was founded around 1714 by some of the popular theatres of the Parisian fairs. In 1762 the company was merged with, and for a time took the name of its chief rival the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and was also called the...
on the occasion of a festival in 1896 in honour of Adam de le Hale.
His other play, Le jeu Adan or Le jeu de la Feuillee (ca. 1262), is a satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
drama in which he introduces himself, his father and the citizens of Arras with their peculiarities. His works include a congé, or satirical farewell to the city of Arras, and an unfinished chanson de geste
Chanson de geste
The chansons de geste, Old French for "songs of heroic deeds", are the epic poems that appear at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known examples date from the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, nearly a hundred years before the emergence of the lyric poetry of the trouvères and...
in honour of Charles of Anjou, Le roi de Sicile, begun in 1282; another short piece, Le jeu du pelerin, is sometimes attributed to him.
His known works include thirty-six chansons (literally, "songs"), forty-six rondets de carole, eighteen jeux-partis, fourteen rondeaux
Rondeau (poetry)
This article is about the poetry form. For other uses, see Rondeau.A rondeau is a form of French poetry with 15 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure...
, five motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s, one rondeau-virelai
Virelai
A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.A virelai is similar to a rondeau...
, one ballette, one dit d'amour, and one congé.
Example
Recording
- 2004 – Zodiac. Ars NovaArs novaArs nova refers to a musical style which flourished in France and the Burgundian Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages: more particularly, in the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel and the death of the composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377...
and Ars SubtiliorArs subtiliorArs subtilior is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered around Paris, Avignon in southern France, also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century. The style also is found in the French Cypriot repertory...
in the Low Countries and Europe Capilla FlamencaCapilla FlamencaCapilla Flamenca is a vocal and instrumental early music consort based in Leuven, Belgium. The group specialises in 14th to 16th Century music from Flanders and takes its name from the choir of the court chapel of Emperor Charles V...
. Eufoda 1360.
External links
- Archives de littérature du Moyen Âge (Arlima) A complete online bibliography of Adam de la Halle and his works