Chanson de geste

“ The solemn and affecting church chant, the passionate romance for the tenor, the great closing duet in which the ecstasy of despair rises to that of exaltation, the resistless sweep of the rhythm—all mark one of the most effective single acts ever written. ”

“ Rhyme came in with the 13th century, and had the effect in languid bards of weakening the narrative; the sing-song of it led at last to the abandonment of verse in favour of plain historical prose. The general character of the chansons de geste, especially of those of the 12th century, is hard, coarse, inflexible, like the march of rough men stiffened by coats of mail. There is no art and little grace, but a magnificent display of force. These poems enshrine the self-sufficiency of a young and powerful people ”

“ Movements may have an intrinsic grace and beauty, as words that utter no meaning may possess a splendour of sound. But the dance is to movement what language is to words: it implies selection and co-ordination for the purpose of expressing something—in this case the very essence of the sentimental emotions which the vibrant music of the strings evokes. Never was the ecstasy of the valse so irresistibly expressed. Leaping, swaying, its whole being abandoned to the intoxicating rhythm, the dancing phantom seems to draw the very power which animates it from the music’s throbbing pulse. ”

“ As the more complicated dancing steps become more pleasing than the primeval monotonous step, the melodic chant becomes more pleasing than the simple rhythmic chant; that is, a rhythm of rhythms is developed which makes melody. ”

“ The wealth of material is baffling to the ordinary student; of the medieval chansons de geste many hundreds of thousands of lines have been preserved. The habit of composing became in the 14th century, as has been said, no longer an art but a monomania. Needless to add that a very large proportion of the surviving poems have never yet been published. All the best of the early chansons de geste are written in ten-syllable verse, divided into stanzas or laisses of different length, united by a single assonance. ”

“ During the progress of the dance, the males and females improvise doggerel rhymes complimentary of the personal beauties and graces of those whom they admire, or expressive of their love and devotion, which are chanted with the music of the instruments, and the whole company join in the general chorus at the end of each verse. The din of voices is sometimes almost deafening. ”

“ Every step must be a thing of beauty, every bend and rising, while the double flutes play faster and faster, and the measured rhythm becomes a wild whirl. They all know the dance, and the music is a guide to the feeling to be expressed; the dancing must be suited to it. Every gesture is a stroke of color which may beautify or mar the picture. Body and spirit are in perfect harmony, combining to represent the feelings that stir the soul. ”

“ All the men but one leaned back upon the settles or forward upon the tables, their hands on their tankards, watching the one who sang a ballad—a ballad known to them so well that they seemed not to listen, but simply to let the melody surge about them and provoke what thoughts it would. ”

“ Next we were favoured with a song in bass, accompanied with the piano—in which a male voice was so closely imitated as to defy the most acute ear to make it anything else; a male voice, however, highly refined—deeper, stronger, sweeter—than ever before fell upon our ear. The feelings of all present were delightfully stirred,—even the atmosphere in which we sat seemed trembling with emotion.
These were followed by other songs, enough to exhibit the vocal charms and operatic talent of this wonderful cantatrice, in all their strength and compass. ”

“ There is something surpassingly sweet in the music of the flute and violin in the hands of skillful performers; and yet, to my thinking, it falls far short of the melody of the human voice. I have listened to some of the most celebrated singers, and of the most distinguished performers, but it appears to me now, that I never, on any other occasion, heard the melody of the human voice, or instrumental music half so enchanting, as that which came floating over the lake on that calm summer night. ”

“ Many songsters in widely different families possess the habit of soaring and falling alternately while singing, and in some cases all the aerial postures and movements, the swift or slow descent, vertical, often, with oscillations, or in a spiral, and sometimes with a succession of smooth oblique lapses, seem to have an admirable correspondence with the changing and falling voice--melody and motion being united in a more intimate and beautiful way than in the most perfect and poetic forms of human dancing. ”

“ Every syllable and every turn of melody of such a song as 'My Mother bids me bind my Hair,' sung by a lady at one end, or 'When the Heart of a Man,' sung at the other, could be distinctly heard, but with the effect before noticed, that the voice was muffled or shut in, as if the singer were in a cellar, while it was not always possible to say at once whether the voice was that of a man or a woman. ”

“ While we were at the Waterfall, some half-score peasants, chiefly women and girls, assembled just out of reach of the Spring, and set up—surely, the wildest chorus that ever was heard by human ears,—a song not of articulate sounds, but in which the voice was used as a mere instrument of music, more flexible than any which art could produce,—sweet, powerful, and thrilling beyond description. ”

“ In truth all the while her heart is swelling with pleasure at their recognition, voiced as it presently is in a baying chorus, heads well thrown back, throats swelling, tails held aloft and firm, for sweet as the voice of love is hound music to the people of the English hunting country, however far from it their lives have led them. ”

“ A score of forms whirl swiftly before us under the softened gaslight. I say a score of forms—but each is double—they would have made two score before the dancing began. Twenty floating visions—each male and female. Twenty women knit and growing to as many men, undulate, sway, and swirl giddily before us, keeping time with the delirious melody of piano, harp, and violin. ”

“ On the contrary, they sound in the ear like sweet, harmonious music, and reach the very core of the heart, making it dance in merriment. Although his manner of expression is not much varied, yet it is not dully monotonous. ”

“ A fine singing voice has, perhaps, the most beautiful of all tone colors, but the sensibility of many people seems to be limited to that alone. In fact the love of singing is, in many cases, merely a sentimental thrill unconnected with any intellectual process and entirely devoid of imagination. In the orchestra the tone of the instrument is to the theme itself what the color is to the rose. ”

“ And then mark! how, amid the chorus of a hundred voices and a hundred instruments,--of flutes, and drums, and trumpets,--this universal shout and whirl-wind of the vexed air, you can so clearly distinguish the melancholy vibration of a single string, touched by the finger,--a mournful, sobbing sound! Ah, this is indeed human life! where in the rushing, noisy crowd, and amid sounds of gladness, and a thousand mingling emotions, distinctly audible to the ear of thought, are the pulsations of some melancholy string of the heart, touched by an invisible hand. ”

“ A woman usually began the singing, in a high-pitched, nasal, or throaty voice, which she modulated in an extraordinary way. Immediately other women joined in, then several men whose voices were of tenor quality, followed by other men in basses and barytones, chanting in two or three tones which, for rhythm and tone, quality, were like the beating of kettledrums. ”

“ Drums were beating, trumpets sounding, bells clanging, while from the house-tops the population, men and women, were waving their handkerchiefs to the English, gesticulating and making all sorts of pantomimic expression of joy. ”

“ Perhaps we find ourselves tapping the rhythm with our feet or our fingers, or it may be that we find the very expression on our own face is altering to match that upon the countenance of the dancer. The skilful speaker also can arouse almost any emotion he pleases in the minds of his audience. He may one moment have them laughing, and then the next, as if by magic touch, he may bring them to sober mood or even to sorrow. Music no less surely does the same through the agency of rhythm, melody, and harmonic texture. ”

“ The singing is execrable, being a high, nasal falsetto, and the dancing, or rather swaying on their tiny feet while waving overhead a dirty cloth in their beautifully-shaped hands, is feeble in the extreme. ”

“ And so easily are our musical sensibilities awakened, and so readily are we influenced by song-power, that these effects may be exerted upon us, to a very considerable extent, even by the singer of ordinary abilities. But by a beautiful cantatrice, gifted with a pure, resonant, sympathetic voice, its natural sweetness and power supplemented by careful artistic cultivation, possessing a pleasing, unaffected manner of appearance and expression, all these effects may be amplified, intensified. ”

“ All the time the dancing is going on the women keep up a weird, monotonous chant, often beginning on a high key and dying down almost to a whisper. It is not very musical to our ears but the effect is often very strange and wonderful. ”

“ The proper form of the ballads is the same as the carole, with narrative substance added. Anything will do for a ring dance, either at a wake in a churchyard, or in a garden like that of the Roman de la Rose, or at Christmas games like those described in Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight. At first, a love-song was the favourite sort, with a refrain of douce amie, and so on. ”

“ High, pure notes, the voices of women in ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices of men; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so mighty, that the straining, groaning organ-pipes could not dominate that harmony. But the shrill sound of children's singing among the choristers, the reverberation of deep bass notes, awakened gracious associations, visions of childhood, and of man in his strength, and rose above that entrancing harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love. ”

“ A delicate instrumental passage in the music gives the idea of the vigil, in the nature of an intermezzo, and a fresh and pleasing effect is obtained by the use of a humming with closed lips, by the chorus outside, of the melody, supported by the somewhat unusual instrument, a viol d'amore. ”

“ There is a whole new set of sensations when one enters the softly lighted, dim white interior, with the echo repeating each word like the response of a chanted service—a single note from flute or guitar a whole theme. ”

“ Here's our choir-leader sick, and the rest won't chirp without him. I can't sing any more than I can dance. You can—sing, I mean—both, for that matter. I'd give the best cast of a fly I ever had to take you out in a reel. Well, here's the trouble. ”

“ The arms, still draped with the green mantles, should be raised a little as the words "Shout with joy" are sung, and during the singing of the remainder of the line swayed from side to side in rhythm with the song, always with a reserve in the movements, because of the mystery mentioned in the words of the song, that life is maintained by the giving of life. ”

“ There are victorious marches, carrying everything before them, which go crashing on without stopping, ever spurring on the sparkling and joyous patterns. There are also pastoral themes, pure and voluptuous reveries, [16] dances, and songs accompanied by flutes, with a Grecian perfume, [17] and a smiling virtuosity, a joy intoxicated with itself, twisting lines, and vocal arabesques, vocalizations, trills for the voice which gambol light-heartedly with the little wave-like arpeggios of the violins. ”

“ For, to dance at the end of her little ditty, and to have the chorus girls relieve her of further action at the end of the first verse, brings as great a relief to her as well as to the audience, as do his trouser pockets to the young man who makes-believe to love her for ever and for ever . ”

“ At first the dancing is done quietly, merely to amuse the men, and some of the younger men beat the drums and sing. The men under the stimulating influence of the wady join in, singing at the top of their voices, their bodies swaying to and fro to the time of the music. ”

“ Two lines are formed—swinging gracefully to and fro, figures are changing, hands clasping and thrilling, arms are twining and winding, until the different bands are wound into beautiful and panting groups, when the music pauses a moment—hands fall, and to be convinced that our angelic partners have not wings, each seizes his fair companion around the waist, and away we spin in the waltz. ”

“ And thus together we respond to your gentle touch, and soothe for you many a lonely hour. Life from death, music through fires of trial: this is also your destiny. Hereafter every nerve of your tried and perfected being shall respond to the slightest touch of the Hand you love, filling heaven with happy music."
"As for me," said the pages of the hymn-book, "my discipline has, perhaps, been the severest of all. Once rustling in the flax-field, rejoicing in the dews and sunshine, I was torn, racked, twisted, and woven by many iron hands into linen. ”

“ Our friends hold their breath for fear of losing one strain of the sweet music; they lean forward eagerly 106to catch every movement of the willowy figures. All is grand beyond conception. The music becomes more soul-stirring, the dance grows quicker, the lights blinding in their brilliancy. Our friends arise in their eagerness to see and hear. ’Tis glorious!
Suddenly the maidens leave the room, the song and music cease, the lights are darkened. ”