Grimace (composer)

The two part ballade Dedens mon cuer survives, but is incomplete,[16] and shares an identical refrain text with Trebor's ballade Passerose de beaute.^[17] Musicologist Yolanda Plumley notes that Dedens mon cuer also has textual similarities to other "Machaut-style" ballades: Egidius's Roses et lis ay veu en une fleur and the anonymous En mon cuer est un blanc cine pourtrait.^[17]

One of two surviving four part works, the ballade Des que buisson is notable for its use of hocket in the triplum (third part) which Günther describes as something that "is striking and contributes to the complementary rhythm of the piece".^[2] Since Des que buisson means to represent the coming of spring, musicologist Elizabeth Eva Leach explains the hocket rhythms, as well as falling thirds and repeated notes, as part of a birdsong motif.^[16]

In Grimace's double ballade Se Zephirus/Se Jupiter, similarities to Machaut are especially apparent since Grimace adopts musical rhymes at the main cadences.^[2] The work has the same rhymes as Machaut's double ballade Quant Theseus/Ne quier (B34), with which it also shares a refrain text.^[16] Despite this, Leach notes that Quant Theseus/Ne quier is in four parts with two texted upper voices and an untexted contratenor, as opposed to the three-part Se Zephirus/Se Jupiter where only the tenor is untexted. Because of this, closer technical similarities can be drawn to the polytextual double ballade Je me merveil/J’ay pluseurs fois by Jacob Senleches, and Jehan Vaillant’s double rondeau Dame, doucement/Doulz amis.^[16] Both texts of Se Zephirus/Se Jupiter have an Ubi sunt theme, which is when, as Leach describes it, "hyperbolical comparisons are made between the lady and/or patron and a list of figures from the classical, biblical and/or Christian past".^[16] Other works in the Chantilly Codex are representative of this, often signified by also beginning the text with "Se".^[16] Se Zephirus/Se Jupiter is Grimace's second most frequently performed work.^{[n 3]}

Virelai

External audio
A l'arme A l'arme performed by the Folger Consort
A l’arme A l’arme

Grimace's most frequently performed and best known composition is his other four part work, the virelai A l’arme A l’arme,

Apel proposed that two virelais – C’estoit ma douce and Rescoés: Horrible feu d’ardent desir/Rescoés: Le feu de mon loyal servant – are by Grimace based on stylistic similarities, the latter of which shows considerable textual and musical similarities to A l’arme A l’arme.[24] Their attribution remains doubtful.^[2]

Works

Editions

Grimace's works are included in the following collections:

• OCLC 311424615
  .
• Mudge, Charles Roswell (1972–78). The Pennsylvania Chansonnier: A Critical Edition of Ninety-five Anonymous Ballades from the Fourteenth Century with Introduction, Notes and Glossary. Bloomington:
  OCLC 32768372
  .
• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1981–89). French Secular Music. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 18–22. Monaco: Éditions de l'Oiseau-Lyre.

• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1982). Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 564 Part 1, nos. 1–50. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 18. Monaco:
  OCLC 181660103
  .
• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1982). Manuscript Chantilly, Musée Condé 564 Part 2, nos. 51–100. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 19. Monaco:
  OCLC 181661945
  .
• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1982). Ballads and Canons. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 20. Monaco:
  OCLC 880124843
  .
• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1987). Virelais. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 21. Monaco:
  OCLC 16712618
  .
• Greene, Gordon K., ed. (1989). Rondeaux and Miscellaneous Pieces. Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century. Vol. 22. Monaco:
  OCLC 19540959
  .

References

Sources

Books

• ISBN 978-0-674-37501-7
  .
• ISBN 978-3-476-41020-7. Archived
  from the original on 18 July 2021. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
• ISBN 978-0-19-316303-4
  .
• ISBN 978-0-19-520255-7
  .
• ISBN 978-0-521-61934-9
  .
• ISBN 978-0-13-608192-0
  .
• Wimsatt, James I. (1982). Chaucer and the Poems of "Ch" in University of Pennsylvania MS French 15. Lanham:
  ISBN 978-0-8476-7200-4
  .

Journals and articles

• JSTOR 20532157
  .
• ISBN 9781561592630. Archived from the original on 8 October 2020. Retrieved 25 October 2020. (subscription or UK public library membership
  required)
• ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. Archived from the original on 12 October 2020. Retrieved 14 August 2020. (subscription or UK public library membership
  required)
• Newes, Virginia Ervin (1977). "Imitation in the Ars nova and Ars subtilior". Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap. 31. Belgium: Societe Belge de Musicologie: 38–59.
  JSTOR 3686188
  .
• Plumley, Yolanda (2003). "An 'Episode in the South'? Ars Subtilior and the Patronage of French Princes". Early Music History. 22.
  S2CID 194113019
  .
• JSTOR 20531876
  .

Online

Blog by subject-matter expert

• Leach, Elizabeth Eva (29 December 2010). "The composer Grimace". eeleach.blog. Archived from the original on 8 August 2020.

Further reading

• JSTOR 930261
  .
• JSTOR 929659
  .
• OCLC 476484624
  .
• Wilkins, Nigel E. (1968). "The Post-Machaut Generation of Poet-Musicians". Nottingham Medieval Studies. 12: 40–84.
  doi:10.1484/J.NMS.3.38
  . Reprinted in Wilkins, Nigel E. (2011). "Words and Music in Medieval Europe". Farnham: Ashgate. 8: 40–84.
• Van, Imprimerie J. (1925). Annales De L'academie Royale D'archeologie De Belgique (in French). Imprimerie E. Secelle. pp. 131–2.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Grimace.

• List of compositions by Grimace at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Works by Grimace in the Medieval Music Database from La Trobe University