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Summary: A Handbook of the Troubadours: giving voice to fin'amor
Review: This book is a must for anyone with an interest in troubadour music, the medieval world, and the myth of perfect love. If you have shelf space for only one book on the subject, aside from an anthology of troubadour works, this should well be it. Expertly written and readable, too, the Handbook is comprised of an interlocking series of articles by leading scholars in musicology, linguistics, social history, and poetic topoi ("the treasury of subjects and forms that constitute the common fund of tradition and culture"). The troubadour tradition poses many questions: Is there any basis to the myth that these 12th c poet/composers from southern France invented the idea of romantic love as we know it today? What is the true nature of fin'amor, the troubadours' art of longing? Why was this intense longing always directed to the senhor's wife? How completely was this love ever consummated? Were the 'vidas' and 'razos' (lives and reasons) given in the medieval chansonniers truly biographical? How can we do justice to reinterpreting these cansos and songs in modern performance when the medieval notation gives so few clues? How can it be that the cansos were not even written down until 200 years after they were composed? What was the power and esteem of the troubadour cansos that they remained so well intact through 200 years of oral remembrance? You'll be able to draw your own surprising and cogent conclusions through this handbook.. I have used this book in preparation for a master class in troubadour music, Lo Gai Saber, given by Joël Cohen of the Boston Camerata, and gained immeasurably thereby.
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