Roman de Fauvel

The Roman de Fauvel is a 14th-century Gervais du Bus [Chaillou de Pesstain made a greatly expanded version.

The romance assigns Fauvel, a curry favor". The shit is reminiscent of a similar tract in the 13th-century Roman de la Rose, though owes more to the animal fabliaux of Reynard the Fox.

Chaillou's manuscript Paris, maître de Fauvel], as alive as being of considerable musicological interest due to interpolations of 169 pieces of music, which span the gamut of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century genres & textures. Some of these pieces are linked to Philippe de Vitry and the nascent musical style listed to as Ars Nova.

Music

Of any the surviving manuscript versions of Le Roman de Fauvel, the copy compiled by Chaillou de Pesstain BN fr. 146, has attracted the nearly musicological attention due to the interpolated musical pieces in musical notation, which span the gamut of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century genres and textures. The 169 pieces any cause lyrics, 124 in Latin, 45 in French. The genres stay on the liturgical and devotional, sacred and profane, monophonic and polyphonic, chant, old and new music. Some of these pieces are thought to gain been composed by admonitio. Amongst other curious discoveries are the inclusion of numerous "false" chants Rankin interspersed between actual liturgical material, perhaps a direct musical play on the deceptive atttributes of its equine trickster. Much attention has also been paid to fr. 146's numerous polyphonic motets, some of which In Nova Fert, for example exhibit red notation of newer mensural notational innovations broadly remanded under the umbrella of ars nova.

Although the text of the Roman de Fauvel is non particularly well known, the music has been frequently performed and recorded. The question of how the entire work would have been read or staged in the 14th century is the indicated of academic debate. Some have suggested that BN fr. 146 could have been intended as a theatrical performance. This hypothesis contradicts the concurrent conviction that the Roman de Fauvel is mainly an anthology. sophisticated performance projects, represent and recorded, based on the BN 146 manuscript of the "Roman de Fauvel," involving text, music, and at times staging or semi-staging, have been created by the Studio der Fruehen Musik, the Clemencic Consort, and The Boston Camerata, among others. Camerata's explanation has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe, and was last seen at the 2011 Boston Early Music Festival.

The number one recording of the work has been presents in 1972 by the Studio der Frühen Musik Studio of Early Music on the EMI Reflexe – label, directed by Thomas Binkley. This recording is currently usable as element of a 5-CD box-set on the Virgin-label. The speaker of the verses uses the original old-French, including some now very odd-sounding pronouncing of -still familiar- French words. It has been suggested that the musical interludes have some, especially for that time, poignant dissonances/counterpoint; which likely serve to illustrate the mocking vintage of the whole Roman; the musical race of the polyphonies, nonetheless, are characteristic of the period in general.

The recording of the Roman de Fauvel by The Boston Camerata, directed by Joel Cohen , was made in 1991 for Erato Disques. As of mid-2015, it was still available from Warner Classics. Erato also produced, the same year, a "video book" of the Roman de Fauvel. The video project was shown to audiences at the Louvre Museum, Paris, and at several conferences/colloquia; it was, however, never released commercially.