The bilingual songs of the Codex Buranus.
Musical, literary and performance practice issues
At the ends of some Latin love songs from the Codex Buranus (c.1230) Middle High German stanzas affiliated to the tradition of Minnesang have been inserted. None of these songs have survived in this bilingual form in any other manuscript. Although the adiastematic neumes that occasionally appear in these pieces cannot be transcribed into a modern system of staves and clefs, they reveal many details of a type of vocality that is still not clearly defined today.
The first phase of this work consists in a systematic philological study of the corpus of 47 bilingual songs, 18 of which carry neumes. The aim is to shed light on the genesis of the songs: Are these hybrid items the result of a contrafacture, a compilation, or rather a (re)composition sui generis that has a poetic-musical identity and a performative function beyond the linguistic contrast?
The methodology combines literary and musicological perspectives. The critical examination of the textual tradition and the identification of literary procedures (e.g. intertextuality, ellipsis, changes of poetic voice) throughout the corpus should provide clues about the design and function of the song in its bilingual dimension. Even if there are many gaps in our knowledge of the historical performance situation, can we measure the effect of a sung performance on an audience that was probably bilingual itself? On a musicological level, the paleographic and semiological study should lead to a better understanding of the vocality to which the neumes refer. The focus is on the relationship between musical notation and the characteristics of Latin rhythmic poetry, which is still too often separated from musicological research, as well as the poetic declamation of the Minnesang.
Through these complementary perspectives, the study aims to put into question some of the apparent contradictions that scholars see in the Codex Buranus when describing its sociocultural context. Can it be argued that the linguistic contrasts reveal interdependencies rather than contradictions, for example between the Latin culture of the clergy and the vernacular culture of the laity? Can conclusions be drawn from this not only about the history of the creation and reception of the bilingual repertoire, but also of the Codex Buranus as a whole?
The second phase of the work will be devoted to exploring this repertoire through musical practice. If certain songs were originally conceived and perceived as a unit, it seems logical in terms of historical performance practice to sing them - or at least to explore their particular vocal aspects - in this form today. With this in mind, plausible melodies will be proposed by evaluating the philological results in practical experiments.
This PhD thesis is part of the SNSF project “Carmina Burana Online” and is inscribed at the Musicology Department of the University of Basel.