During the reign of Louis XIII, secular music in France was dominated by the air de cour. This term first appeared in 1571, in the title of a collection of monodic songs with lute accompaniment, Livre d’air de cours miz sur le Luth, by Adrian Le Roy. Other composers sometimes used it for polyphonic compositions without instrumental accompaniment, most often employing four or five vocal parts. Common to both was a strophic construction of both the text and its musical setting. Moreover, many airs de cour were published in both solo versions and as part songs – a practice that allowed for a multitude of performance solutions. On the basis of iconographic sources, we can deduce that they were sung at times with the accompaniment of a larger group of instruments. In such instances, the singer and the lutenist (the traditional accompaniment) realised the parts written in the solo version of the air, while the other musicians performed the material of the remaining vocal parts from the polyphonic version. According to Antoine Boësett, one of the leading composers of airs de cour, these works were designed to entertain the king. Louis XIII himself apparently fell in love with them, and for Boësett the king’s admiration was the highest possible reward.
Simply… Philharmonic! Project 4:
Already in the early Middle Ages, music lovers took delight in the art of improvisation and ornamentation. So in wishing to impress London audiences as an organ virtuoso, George Frideric Handel added organ concertos to his oratorios. Almost to the end of his life, despite his deteriorating eyesight, he wowed listeners with his improvised solo performances. In the English capital, Handel’s entourage included another outstanding instrumentalist – the violinist Pietro Castrucci, whose compositions attest to his brilliant performance skills. In the Renaissance, as well, performers embellished familiar melodies of songs and dances in order to present them solely on instruments, without vocal accompaniment. Over time, the principles governing such ornamentation were written down in the form of treatises, to set them out not just for performers, but also for composers wishing to write instrumental works. There was also no lack of improvised ornamentation in vocal music. Singers at the court of Louis XIII performed airs de cour, popular at that time, in which they extemporised embellishments to melodies that in notation were ostensibly quite simple. After all, those songs were meant to delight the king himself.
Daniel Laskowski
