Adam de la Halle [Adan de la Hale, Adan le Bossu, Adan le Boscu d’Arras, Adan d’Arras]

(b Arras, 1245–50; d Naples, ?1285–8, or ?England, after 1306). French trouvère. His musical and literary works encompass virtually every genre current in the late 13th century. He is one of the few medieval musicians to be credited with both monophonic and polyphonic music.

1. Life.

2. Works.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ROBERT FALCK

Adam de la Halle

1. Life.

Apart from his own works, there is little other documentary evidence for a biography of Adam de la Halle. It seems certain that he was born in Arras, as his name sometimes appears as Adam d'Arras, or, in one source, Adam le Boscu d'Arras – forms that were probably used when he was a student in Paris. Tax records show that there was a ‘Maison d'Adam d'Arras’ there in 1282, although it is unlikely that he was living in it at that time. The most common form of his name is Adan le Bossu (the hunchback), a name which his family apparently adopted to distinguish themselves from the other ‘Hale’ families in Arras. In the Roi de Secile Adam protested that, although he was called ‘the hunchback’, he was not that at all (‘On m'apèle Bochu, mais je ne le sui mie’). The origin of this unusual name is not known, but it may be that some member of the family was indeed a hunchback, and the name thereafter remained.

In the Jeu d'Adam ou de la feuillie, it is stated that Adam's wife's name was Maroie and that his father was a Maistre Henri de la Hale. In the Nécrologe de la Confrérie des jongleurs et de bourgeois d'Arras there is a Maistre Henri Bochu, whose death was recorded in 1290. In 1282, the death of the wife of Henri de la Hale is likewise recorded. The same Nécrologe lists two persons who may have been Adam's wife: in 1274, a Maroie li Hallee is mentioned, and in 1287 Maroie Hale. It would be difficult to choose between these two, although Adam, in the Jeu d'Adam apparently written about 1276 (see Cartier, 1971), referred to his wife as still living.

The frequently repeated accounts of Adam's early schooling in Vaucelles and his exile to Douai are based on faulty interpretations of two lines of the Jeu d'Adam and of four lines of Baude Fastoul's congé respectively. He probably studied in Paris: he is often described in the sources as ‘maistre’, and in the Jeu d'Adam he expressed the desire to return to his studies in Paris. The jeux-partis with other trouvères of Arras indicate that he was a member of the local puy. The jeux-partis with Jehan Bretel (d 1272) provide the only reliable date from Adam's early life; they were most likely written after his return from Paris which was probably in about 1270. (In Adan, a moi respondés, Jehan Bretel referred to Adam as ‘bien letrés’, thus strengthening the impression that his studies took place before the jeux-partis were written.) His marriage to Maroie must have occurred shortly after this date (see Cartier).

He probably did not remain in Arras for long as both the Jeu d'Adam and his congé (written c1276–7) are ‘farewells’. When he expressed the desire in the Jeu d'Adam to return to Paris his departure is not pictured as imminent; in his congé, however, departure is imminent, although Paris is no longer mentioned. His destination after the congé was more likely Italy, where he served Robert II, Count of Artois. Robert made several trips to Italy on behalf of his uncle Charles of Anjou beginning in 1274. In 1283 Robert travelled to Italy again to aid his uncle in his war against the Sicilians. There Adam entered the service of Charles of Anjou, the subject of the fragmentary chanson de geste, Le roi de Secile. During this period the Jeu de Robin et de Marion was also composed and performed in Naples for Charles and Robert.

After the death of Charles of Anjou in 1285, two contradictory pieces of evidence concern Adam's further activities and his death. In what is presented as a posthumous tribute written in 1288 by Adam's nephew Jehanes Mados, Adam's departure from Arras and his death are recorded (‘ses oncles Adans li Boscus … laissa Arras, ce fu folie, car il est cremus et amés. Quant il morut, ce fu pitiés’: F-Pn fr.375, f.119v; a person named Mados is mentioned in the Jeu d'Adam as well, but it is uncertain whether the two are identical or even related). If this account is reliable, Adam would have been about 50 years old at the time of his death, and his father would have survived him by two to five years. However, an English source from the year 1306 lists a ‘maistre Adam le Boscu’ among the minstrels engaged for the coronation of Edward II in 1307 (see Gégou). This raises the possibility that Adam did not die in Naples as apparently reported by his nephew. Both the unusual name ‘Boscu’ and the appellation ‘maistre’ are distinctive, though it may be that the English Bossu was a younger member of the same family (possibly Adam's son). If this is the composer, his death would have occurred after 1306, when he would have been about 60 years old.

Adam de la Halle

2. Works.

Adam wrote in a wide variety of genres. In addition to the monophonic chansons, the jeux-partis, the shorter rondeaux and the three plays with musical inserts, he wrote one of the three extant congés by Artesian poets (the others are by Baude Fastel and Jehan Bodel) and the incomplete epic poem Le roi de Secile. Some critics have even doubted that his poetry could all be the work of a single man. His works comprise not only the continuation of the courtly lyric but also the even older tradition of the chanson de geste alongside the modern, bourgeois elements in the Jeu d’Adam and in Robin et Marion. The Jeu d'Adam has provoked the greatest interest both in the earlier and the more recent Adam criticism; it has been characterized as ‘the fusion of courtly lyric, allegory and social criticism … a tour de force without parallel in any literature, with the exception of such non-dramatic works as the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, the Decameron, Don Quixote or Gargantua and Pantagruel’ (Cartier, p.181). It is all of these things, and in addition has the distinctly modern characteristics of being autobiographical (Adam himself appears in the play) and strongly individualistic.

His works survive in over two dozen manuscripts, one of which (F-Pn fr.25566) is virtually a complete edition arranged by genres (see illustration). In this source the chansons are entered first, followed by the jeux-partis (‘parture’), the rondeaux, the motets and finally the dramatic and narrative works. No other source is so complete, but several contain both monophonic and polyphonic works. The motets are transmitted in the principal motet collections of the late 13th century. (See N. Wilkins, CMM, xliv, 1967 for sources of all the musical works.)

Of the 54 monophonic works listed below, 18 are jeux-partis. In 16 of these, Jehan Bretel is the partner, which means that they were written no later than 1272. Since the melody of the jeu-parti was presumably composed by the ‘questioner’ who sings the first strophe, very few of these can be considered musical works of Adam, who is the ‘respondent’ in 13 cases. It may be, however, that the early encounter with Bretel was an important influence on the younger man's melodic style in the chansons. Compare, for instance, the melody for Adan, a moi respondés inex.1 with the melody which served for two of Adam's chansons,ex.2. Without postulating any direct relationship between these two works, or even suggesting which was written earlier, there are, nevertheless, similarities that cannot be overlooked. The pieces are virtually identical in range and share a basically ‘C major’ tonality; both remain in the lower part of the range for the first four phrases, and rise later. The two melodies have few identical turns of phrase, but the 3rds C–E and E–G are important in both. While Bretel's melody is diffuse and loosely organized, however, Adam's is formally clear and melodically sophisticated. The initial repeated pair of phrases is not conceived as a clearly contrasted pair, but as open and closed variants of the same phrase. The second of these appears, again slightly varied, as a musical refrain in the last line. In addition, both the penultimate and antepenultimate phrases recall the cadences found in the first two lines. Similar melodies are found in other jeux-partis and in the chanson De cuer pensieu.

While the melody shown in ex.2 gives a distinctly modern – or at least uncourtly – impression, other chansons seem closer to the older tradition. Il ne muet pas de sens celui qui plaint may represent this tradition (ex.3). Its characteristic combination of falling and rising motion in the first two phrases recalls the oldest and most central tradition of French monophonic song (e.g. Bernart de Ventadorn's Be m'an perdut lai enves Ventadorn and the Chastelain de Couci's Quant li rossignol iolis). Adam's style tends to exhibit the major tonality, the clear arrangement of the cadences and the formal sophistication already noted in ex.2 in which the last two lines are an exact complement of the first two without being a literal reprise, and the middle lines reflect the contour of the first lines in reverse, at the same time presenting a complete contrast in their cadences both to what precedes and to what follows.

The rondeaux are both interesting and important as early indications of the secular direction which polyphonic music was to take in the 14th century. Although labelled ‘Li rondel’ in the sources, only 14 of the 16 are actually rondeaux in the later, ‘fixed’ sense. This is entirely appropriate to the 13th century's understanding of the term ‘rondeau’ (see Rondeau (i)), which was applied more or less universally to refrain songs which are ‘round’ by virtue of an initial refrain that recurs periodically. The exceptions to the standard rondeau form are Fines amouretes ai, a virelai, and Dieus soit, a ballade with an initial refrain. These pieces are set polyphonically in note-against-note style. The scoring in the sources always has the principal melody in the middle voice, even though at times this voice may actually be the lowest sounding part. Adam occasionally introduced variety into the strict rondeau form by varying the added voices when the form demands a repetition in the principal melody. Thus in Je muir, a standard eight-line rondeau, the following scheme results:

added voices: ABcAcdAB
melody: ABaAabAB

In Dieus soit a kind of variety is achieved by exchanging the added voices.

Five motets are attributed to Adam with some certainty and six others have been attributed to him by modern editors because they quote material found in the genuine works. All the authentic motets are based on plainchant tenors, two of which are among the most widely used tenors in the 13th century (Omnes and [In] seculum). These pieces are basically conservative and include refrains from other works of Adam. The remaining motets contrast strikingly with the authentic ones in that four are based on French secular tenors, one of which (He, resvelle toi, Robin) also occurs in the Jeu de Robin et de Marion. As in the first group, refrains, primarily from the polyphonic rondeaux, are quoted in almost every one of these motets. In general, their style is slightly later than that of the authentic ones. The quoted material in them is the only evidence for Adam's authorship, and it is equally likely that other composers could have quoted Adam's songs. In the case of Dame bele, however, the interdependence of motet and rondeau goes somewhat deeper, extending to the melodic construction of the tenor and the triplum. This raises the possibility that the rondeau may have been based on the motet, in which case it would be entirely unnecessary to assume that Adam is the composer of the latter.

Of the three dramatic works containing music only Robin et Marion uses music extensively. While it shares with the later opéra comique the combination of sung and spoken parts, it is more a parody of the narrative pastourelle than a precursor of the later opéra comique. Indeed, the early opera did grow at least in part from the same pastoral tradition, but Adam's early precedent was not taken up by the next generation, and thus remains an isolated phenomenon.

It has been argued that much of the music of Robin et Marion is not original, but was simply culled from current popular song. Certainly, most of the melodies seem to be of a popular cast, but Adam composed similar melodies for his polyphonic rondeaux. Only the fact that some of the melodies from Robin et Marion do occur elsewhere might suggest that they are borrowed, whatever their source.

Adam de la Halle occupies a unique, though somewhat paradoxical, position in the history of music. The largest part of his musical composition was devoted to the monophonic chanson. This labels him as a composer of the past, a masterly representative of a dying tradition. But he is one of a small number of 13th-century composers who wrote both monophonic chansons and motets. The musical style of the rondeaux is basically conservative, but the idea of polyphonic settings of secular texts and melodies outside the motet tradition does point to the immediate future. It is in the dramatic works that Adam shows himself to be distinctly progressive and, indeed, far ahead of his time. Robin et Marion and the Jeu d'Adam both set precedents in different ways, but neither was to exercise any direct influence on the generations immediately following. The fact that he directed most of his creative energy into genres which were either on the wane, such as the monophonic chanson, or into the secular drama with music, whose full development lay far in the future, is an accident of history, and not a critical comment on his importance as an author and composer. This accident means, however, that, for the music historian, Adam remains essentially a man of the past. The opinion of the literary critics seems to apply also to his music: he was a versatile and fertile creator in all of the secular genres of the 13th century.

Adam de la Halle

WORKS

Editions:Oeuvres complètes du trouvère Adam de la Halle: poésies et musique, ed. E. de Coussemaker (Paris, 1872/R) [complete poetry edn with most of the music] [C]Polyphonies du XIIIe siècle, iii, ed. Y. Rokseth (Paris, 1936) [R]Adam de la Halle: Le jeu de Robin et Marion, ed. F. Gennrich, Musikwissenschaftliche Studienbibliothek, xx (Langen, 1962) [G]The Lyric Works of Adam de la Hale, ed. N. Wilkins, CMM, xliv (1967) [complete music edn] [W]The Montpellier Codex, iii, ed. H. Tischler, RRMMA, vi–vii (Madison, WI, 1978)[T]Trouvères-Melodien, ii, ed. H. van der Werf, Monumenta monodica medii aevi, xii (Kassel, 1979) [HW]‘Chanter m'estuet’: Songs of the Trouvères, ed. S.N. Rosenberg and H. Tischler (Bloomington, IN, 1981) [RT]The Lyrics and Melodies of Adam de La Halle, ed. D.H. Nelson and H. van der Werf (New York, 1985) [NW]

jeux

jeux-partis

all monophonic

chansons

all monophonic

‘rondeaux’

all for 3 voices

motets

all for 3 voices

authorship uncertain

Adam de la Halle

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (F. Gennrich)

H. Guy: Essai sur la vie et les oeuvres littéraires du trouvère Adan de le Hale (Paris, 1898/R)

G. Cohen and J. Chailley: Jeu de Robin et Marion (Paris, 1934)

J. Chailley: ‘La nature musicale du Jeu de Robin et Marion’, Mélanges d'histoire du théâtre du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance offerts à Gustave Cohen (Paris, 1950), 111–17

A. Adler: Sens et composition du Jeu de la Feuillée (Ann Arbor, 1956)

G. Reaney: ‘The Development of the Rondeau, Virelai and Ballade Forms from Adam de la Hale to Guillaume de Machaut’, Festschrift Karl Gustav Fellerer zum sechzigsten Geburtstag, ed. H. Hüschen (Regensburg, 1962), 421–7

F. Gégou: ‘Adam le Bossu était-il mort en 1288?’, Romania, lxxxvi (1965), 111–17

P. Ruelle: Les congés d'Arras (Brussels, 1965)

R. Axton and J. Stevens: Medieval French Plays (New York, 1971)

N.R. Cartier: Le bossu désenchanté (Geneva, 1971)

J.H. Marshall, ed.: The Chansons of Adam de la Halle (Manchester, 1971)

R. Barth-Wehrenalp: ‘Der “Trouvère” Adan de la Hale: ein französischer Meistersänger’, IMSCR XI: Copenhagen 1972, 250–53

J. Stevens : ‘La grande chanson courtoise: the Songs of Adam de la Halle’, PRMA, ci (1974–5), 11–30

M. Stewart: ‘The Melodic Structure in Thirteenth-Century “Jeux-Partis”’, AcM, li (1979), 86–107

J. Maillard: ‘Variantes mélodiques dans les chansons de trouvères’, Musique, littérature et société au Moyen Age: Paris 1980, 159–70

J. Stevens: ‘The Manuscript Presentation and Notation of Adam de la Halle's Courtly Chansons’, Source Materials and the interpretation of music: a memorial volume to Thurston Dart, ed. I. Bent (London, 1981), 29–64

R. Barth-Wehrenalp: Studien zu Adan de la Hale (Tutzing, 1982)

J. Maillard: Adam de la Halle: perspective musicale (Paris, 1982)

B.J. Evans: The Unity of Text and Music in the Late Thirteenth-Century French Motet (diss., U. of Pennsylvania, 1983), 180 [discussion of 2 motets]

R. Mullally: ‘Ballerie and Ballade’, Romania, civ (1983), 533–8

M. Benson: ‘L'aspect musical du Jeu de la feuillée’, Romania, cvi (1985), 510–18

H. Tischler: ‘Trouvère Songs: the Evolution of their Poetic and Musical Styles’, MQ, lxxii (1986), 329–40

S. Huot: ‘Transformations of Lyric Voice in the Songs, Motets and Plays of Adam de la Halle’, Romanic Review, lviii (1987), 148–64

M.C. Steel: ‘A Reappraisal of the Role of Music in Adam de la Halle's Jeu de Robin et de Marion’, Music from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek, ed. C.P. Comberiati and M.C. Steel (New York, 1988), 40–55

W. Thomas: ‘The Robin-and-Marion Story: Interactions of Pastourelle, Motet and Chanson in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, MR, li (1990), 241–61

N. van Deusen: ‘The Paradox of Privacy in the Love Songs of Adam de la Halle’, The Cultural Milieu of the Troubadours and Trouvères, ed. N. van Deusen (Ottawa, 1994), 56–66