(b ?Mons, c1400; d Soignies, 20 Sept 1460). Franco-Flemish composer. He is one of the three major musical figures from the first half of the 15th century. Modern critics normally rank him behind his contemporaries Du Fay and Dunstaple, for he had none of the legendary influence attributed to Dunstaple and far less music than Du Fay. But the extent to which his works were borrowed, cited, parodied and intabulated in the later 15th century implies that he had more direct influence than either. His composing career was shorter than Du Fay’s; but in the musical sources of the 1420s and 1430s his work is more often recopied than that of Du Fay – a notable detail, considering that these sources are mainly from northern Italy, where Du Fay was living, whereas Binchois was in far-away Flanders. He was the only one of the three composers to have had any significant connection with the Burgundian court in the ‘Burgundian era’. The years he spent there resulted in a body of work whose consistency of style lends meaning to the concept of a Burgundian tradition in music. All ascriptions for his music read simply ‘Binchois’ or ‘Binchoys’, and archival references tend to use that or the forms ‘Gilles de Bins’ or ‘Gilles de Bins dit Binchois’ (with varying orthographies); evidently, then, his professional name or sobriquet was simply Binchois, his personal name was Gilles de Bins, and the conflated form ‘Gilles Binchois’ is a misnomer (though he does appear in the much later theorist Tinctoris twice as ‘Egidius Binchois’).
DAVID FALLOWS
An obit-book of St Vincent, Soignies (Archives de l’Etat, Mons, Obituaire 51, ed. in Demeuldre, 1904), names his parents as Johannes and Johanna de Binche. They are probably to be identified with Jean de Binch (d ?1425) and his wife Jeanne, née Paulouche (d ?1426), both bourgeois of Mons. Jean was a councillor to Duke Guillaume IV of Hainault and from 1417 to his daughter Jacqueline of Bavaria; he also built a new chapel for the church of St Germain (with provision for daily masses to be said in his memory in perpetuity) and was a councillor of the neighbouring church of Ste Waudru in Mons. So the composer was probably born in the same city as Lassus rather than the town of Binche 16 km away; and he may have received his first musical education around the Mons court which had strong cultural ties with the courts of France and Burgundy. The earliest known documents mentioning the composer are in the accounts of Ste Waudru, where he played the organ from 8 December 1419 (Archives de l’Etat, MS 71) and was registered as ‘fil Ghinoit l’orghanistre’, ‘1 jovene homme appelet Binchois liquels jeuwa des dittes orghenes’ and ‘maistre Ghile l’orghanistre’; on 28 July 1423 ‘Ghuis l’orghanistre’ paid the town of Mons for the privilege of going to live in Lille (Archives de l’Etat, Comptes de la ville, 294, f.9).
Gilles probably trained as a chorister, in which case it may have been at St Germain, Mons, whose choristers also served Ste Waudru. Certainly there is no evidence for the common assertion that he was a chorister at Cambrai Cathedral. It derives from a carelessly phrased sentence in J. Houdoy, Histoire artistique … de Cambrai (Lille, 1880/R1972, p.83). The Binchois concerned is a Jean de Binche who entered as a chorister on 17 August 1469 and subsequently sang both at the Burgundian court (1472–94) and at ’s-Hertogenbosch (1495–1507).
In Ockeghem’s Deploration for Binchois it is stated that in his youth he was ‘soudart/De honnourable mondanité’ – an honourably chivalrous soldier. This may have been in the service of William Pole, Earl of Suffolk, who was among the English occupying forces in France. A legal deposition made by one Guillaume Benoit in 1427 concerning a suspected assassination attempt on Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy tells, as peripheral background information, how in 1424 Suffolk commanded ‘Binchoiz’ to create the rondel Ainsi que a la foiz m’y souvient; and the same deposition tells how in April 1425 ‘Binchoiz’ supported the Duke of Burgundy rather than the Duke of Gloucester in an argument against two Norman servants of Suffolk’s.
Later in the 1420s Binchois joined the Burgundian court chapel. The precise date cannot be determined since the payment lists between 1419 and 1436 are missing. The first evidence of his presence is in his own motet Nove cantum melodie written for the baptism of the short-lived Prince Anthoine of Burgundy on 18 January 1431; its text names the 19 chapel singers, among them Binchois himself. But he must have been there some years earlier since the list of 1436 places him as fifth chaplain in order of seniority within the choir. Moreover the otherwise irrelevant references to Binchois in Benoit’s deposition of 1427 suggest that he was already a ducal employee at that time.
Lists of chapel payments show that Binchois did not have a university degree and was not an ordained priest, though he was ordained subdeacon in 1437 (Strohm, 1985, p.153). This was one of the few choirs in which it was possible to be a chaplain without being a priest. Nor was it necessary for him to be a priest to hold his prebends at St Donatian, Bruges (7 January 1430), at Ste Waudru, Mons (17 May 1437), at St Vincent, Soignies (from 1452), and at St Pierre, Cassel (21 May 1459), all of which he retained until his death. These were almost certainly acquired by the collation of the duke, from whom Binchois received further favours: about 1437 he was made an honorary secretary to the court; on 29 May 1438 he was paid for the volume of Passions en nouvelle maniere (see work-list); and he seems also to have had some powers as a healer, for in July 1437 he was sent 28 sous to provide for the duchess a ring that cured toothache.
Each day’s absence from the choir was scrupulously noted in the court accounts, however, so Binchois cannot have travelled independently much during these years: the prebends were held in absentia. But he did visit Mons in March 1449 when he arrived there together with Du Fay for a convocation of the canons of Ste Waudru. This is the only documented meeting of the two composers, though they probably met in Chambéry in February 1434 and could have met frequently in the 1440s when Du Fay was at Cambrai and freer to move as he chose. By an intriguing coincidence, Du Fay’s apparent patron Jehan Hubert appears as a witness in many Mons court documents alongside Binchois’ father; there is therefore a possibility that the two composers knew one another from an early age.
Soignies was Binchois’ retirement home. He was appointed provost of the collegiate church of St Vincent in 1452 and any payments in the Burgundian court accounts after the end of February 1453 have the annotation that he was ‘paid even though he was absent’. At his death he was still receiving this extremely generous pension, presumably as a reward for some three decades of distinguished service. During these last years the composers Guillaume Malbecque (an executor of his will) and Johannes Regis, were both present in Soignies, whose musical reputation was then growing such that it was later to be praised by both Lessabaeus (Hannoniae urbium, Antwerp, 1534) and Lodovico Guicciardini (Descrittione di tutti i paesi bassi, Antwerp, 1567) for its exceptionally fine singing in an age when musicians from this area were in demand throughout Europe. Binchois died there on 20 September 1460, as recorded in his execution testamentaire (Archives de l’Etat, Mons, Chapitre de Soignies, 42) that also mentions his brother Andri de Binch, his nieces Catherine and Biétrison, daughters of Ernoul de Binch, and a more distant relation Maigne Tramasure, wife of Aimery Dirich, living in Graty (7 km north-west of Soignies).
Four alleged portraits of Binchois survive. (1) The illumination in a manuscript of Martin le Franc’s Le champion des dames prepared at Arras in 1451 (for illustration see Du Fay, Guillaume). Binchois holds a harp and faces Du Fay who stands by an organetto; Binchois points his hand upwards and Du Fay points downwards. No convincing explanation of this symbolism has been advanced. Both composers are named in the illumination. (2) Jan van Eyck, Portrait of ‘Tymotheos’, signed and dated 10 October 1432, with the motto ‘LEAL SOVVENIR’ (see fig.1). Panofsky (1949) argued persuasively that this could be Binchois on the thesis that the name Tymotheos might symbolize a musician who extended the range and scope of music (after Timotheus of Miletus) and that of the three major composers of the day only Binchois was at the Burgundian court in the 1430s. But nothing specifically defines the sitter as Binchois; indeed he may even not be a musician since the scroll in his hand contains script, not music. Although this identification has been supported by Lowinsky and Seebass, there must remain doubt so long as there is no convincing explanation for either the odd pseudo-Greek lettering or the antique scuffing of the parapet on which the sitter leans. Other proposed identifications are reported in Campbell (1998). (3) The Wedding of Philip the Good and Isabelle of Portugal (otherwise known as The Hawking Party of Philip the Good; see Mullally, 1977). The original, formerly attributed to Jan van Eyck, was destroyed by fire in 1608, but late copies are at the Musée National du Château de Versailles (see Burgundy, fig.3) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (formerly at the Château d’Azay-le-Rideau). Besseler (1959) suggested that the man dressed in black (one of only two in the whole picture who are not in white) could be Binchois. The man is apparently singing with the two ladies and the man who surround him. Besseler asserted that the scroll of music in his hand contained music from the tenor of Binchois’ four-voice song, Filles a marier/Se tu t’en marias; but this cannot be confirmed, either from the Versailles detail published by Besseler or from the Dijon detail presented here (fig.2). As with the Tymotheos portrait, the arguments lean rather too heavily on the assumption that Binchois was the only eminent musician at the Burgundian court. (4) A funeral monument now in the cloister of St Vincent, Soignies, taken from the body of the church during restoration in the 19th century. Kreps (1960) suggested it was that of Binchois as described in his execution testamentaire. The donor kneels between two figures in an annunciation scene. The monument is badly rubbed and few details remain; the inscription now below it, in pseudo-Gothic script, was made at the suggestion of Kreps and reflects no demonstrable fact.
Doubt is in order for all of these identifications. Only the first can be accepted with any conviction; and manuscript illuminations are not often careful portraits. The most this one tells is that Binchois may have been slightly taller than Du Fay.
Eyewitness descriptions provide another kind of portrait. Martin le Franc wrote (1442) of the composer’s self-effacing reaction to the two blind vielle players from Castile:
J’ay
veu Binchois avoir vergogne
Et soy taire emprez leur rebelle
(‘I saw Binchois ashamed and silent at their rebec playing’). He contrasted this with the more angry and envious reaction of Du Fay. Ockeghem’s Deploration described Binchois as ‘Le pere de joyeuseté’ and ‘patron de bonté’, adding that he served God ‘en humilité’.
His reputation among writers went hand in hand with that of Du Fay: Martin le Franc twice mentioned the two composers in one breath, and the habit has continued to this day. Simon Greban’s Complainte sur la mort de Jacques Milet (1466), Guillaume Crétin’s Deploration sur la mort d’Ockeghem (1497), Jean Molinet’s Naufrage de la Pucelle and Eloy d’Amerval’s Livre de la deablerie (probably c1490, though printed only in 1508) all mention them together and only Eloy d’Amerval – himself a musician – showed any awareness of the difference between the two.
Binchois is similarly represented in the theoretical and critical writings. Martin le Franc’s opinion that the influence of Dunstaple caused Du Fay and Binchois to produce a ‘nouvelle pratique’ was taken over by Tinctoris (Proportionale musices; CSM, xxii/2a, 1978, p.10) who called it an ‘ars nova’; the idea appeared again in Sebald Heyden (De arte canendi, 1540), Johannes Nucius (Musices poeticae, 1613) and even in an inaugural discourse given by the German schoolmaster Joannes Moller (De musica eiusque excellentia, 1667, published 1681). In his Liber de arte contrapuncti (1477; CSM, xxii/2, 1975, p.12) Tinctoris described Binchois, Dunstaple and Du Fay as the teachers of the next generation; and in the Proportionale musices (CSM, xxii/2a, 1978, p.45) he endorsed an unusual mensuration sign in Binchois. His list of ten famous composers in the Complexus effectuum musices (CSM, xxii/2, 1975, p.176) appeared again in Hermann Finck (Practica musica, 1556), with severe reservations in Adrianus Petit Coclico (Compendium musices, 1552), and was the single fact about Binchois relayed in the earliest modern dictionaries of J.G. Walther (1732), Choron and Fayolle (1810) and Gerber (1812). A similar but different list of ten famous composers representing the peak of contrapuntal skill in the anonymous Spanish treatise in E-E C.III.23 (c1480) included Binchois. But it would seem that the only critic between Martin le Franc and Ficker to remark independently on the music was Gaffurius, who in his Practica musicae (1496) observed that Binchois, like Dunstaple, Du Fay and Brassart, was apt to employ a passing dissonance on the semibrevis. (The frequently found assertion that Binchois is mentioned in Vincenzo Galilei’s Dialogo is incorrect and derives from a misreading of a passage in Haberl.)
If his name survived in the literature only alongside that of Du Fay, his music had more of an independent reputation attested by the intabulations of six songs in the Buxheimer Orgelbuch (one of them seven times), by the citation of 11 song titles in the poetry of Jean Molinet (who cited one of them four times), and by other citations in plays and in the poetry of Jean Régnier and John Skelton. The appearance of his Te Deum in the choirbooks of Gaffurius at Milan and (with two additional voices) in the Segovia Cathedral manuscript gives it a longer active life than almost any work of its generation. Tenor lines were abstracted from two (possibly three) of his songs to make basse danses; and the tenor of Vostre tres doulx appears in two English sources in contexts that suggest it was used as a basis for improvisation. His songs were used for four mass cycles of the mid-15th century: Ockeghem’s Missa ‘De plus en plus’, Bedyngham’s Missa ‘Dueil angoisseux’, the anonymous mass Se tu t’en marias and the anonymous mass-motet cycle Esclave puist il devenir. The subsequent generation made extensive use of three pieces that may not be by Binchois: Tout a par moy (possibly by Frye), Je ne vis oncques (possibly by Du Fay) and Comme femme desconfortée (thought by Rehm to be unauthentic). But if they are his – and the evidence of the sources suggests that all three are – Binchois’ song tenors provided the material for no fewer than seven works by Agricola, and three each by Josquin and Ghiselin as well as other works by Brumel, Tinctoris, Obrecht and Isaac. The latest Renaissance setting of a Binchois tenor is probably in the motet Ave rosa sine spinis by Senfl who may have known the tenor of Comme femme only through its use in Josquin’s Stabat mater.
Nevertheless the finest tribute came at his death in the form of laments by his two greatest surviving contemporaries. Ockeghem’s Mort tu as navré de ton dart contains more biographical information than any other single source. It is a ballade written at a time when ballades were almost extinct, and it adds a fragment of the Requiem Mass in the tenor towards the end. At the opening, before the entry of the French text, the three lower voices have a section texted ‘Miserere’, as though quoting from a work of Binchois, though no such quote can be located. Du Fay’s magnificent rondeau En triumphant de Cruel Dueil must date from around 1460, has a text lamenting the loss of a friend, and contains the words ‘Dueil Angoisseux’ and ‘Triste Plaisir’. Du Fay must have known these two most successful of Binchois songs, and their presence here can hardly be a coincidence. The most reasonable explanation is that this song, too, was written to commemorate the composer who embodied Burgundian music.
Surviving sources of information are clear in their estimate of Binchois. He was always numbered among the great composers. The musical sources of the 1420s and 1430s appear to suggest that in those years Binchois was rather more valued than Du Fay: even though Du Fay was in Italy, where most of these manuscripts were copied, it is the works of Binchois that more often appear in multiple copies during these years. In the later 15th century his works are far more quoted and borrowed than those of Du Fay and Dunstaple. Tinctoris (CSM, xxii/2a, 1978, p.45) said that his immortality was ensured by his ‘compositione jocundissima’ (‘most joyful composition’), but the music itself does not fully endorse the remark which may simply be a paraphrase of Ockeghem’s description of him as ‘pere de joyeuseté’.
Several writers suggest that Binchois may have visited England with either Suffolk or Gloucester, but the evidence is to the contrary. Suffolk did not return to England until 1432, by which time Binchois was permanently employed by the Duke of Burgundy. A letter written by Gloucester’s third wife, Jacqueline of Bavaria, from Valenciennes (Rehm, 1957, p.5*, incorrectly states that it was from England) on 23 November 1428 mentions a ‘Binchois’: but the references in Guillaume Benoit’s testimony of 1427 suggest that Binchois was already at the Burgundian court by then.
Despite this, he would have known English music well. Martin le Franc in Le champion des dames (1442) told how Binchois and Du Fay developed a new style by following Dunstaple and taking on the contenance angloise. That the work of Binchois shows no stylistic change comparable to that identified by Besseler (1950) in the work of Du Fay may be merely because Binchois would have come across English music rather earlier than the colleague who was making his career in Italy. The English occupation of France brought with it English singers and English liturgies; if he worked for Suffolk in 1424 Binchois would have had direct contact with English music.
Insular characteristics often appear in his music: clear cases of this are the Sarum antiphon for In exitu Israel, the use of a favoured English text for Ave regina celorum and the general pauses in Gloria laus et honor. In addition the Kyrie feriale and the paired Sanctus–Agnus feriale bear a family resemblance to the Missa ferialis in GB-Lbl Eg.3307; and the section from ‘Visibilium’ to ‘omnia facta sunt’ of his Credo K18 appears identically as the verse of the English carol Pray for us (ed. in MB, iv, 1952, no.106) – though in this last case there may be room for wondering whether the Credo is really by Binchois. Other manifestations of English style in Binchois were tentatively mentioned by Harrison (1958) and have been fully explored by Peter Wright (in Kirkman and Slavin, 2000). The discussion in Kenney (1964) is an interesting attempt to define the Binchois song style and draw parallels with the English carol repertory; but it treats Binchois as though he were a contemporary of Walter Frye, rather than a leader of the preceding generation, and it makes much of the conflicting ascriptions of Binchois’ works to English composers, while omitting to mention those to Du Fay, Grossin and Clibano. Such matters are easily overstressed; and they are extremely difficult to interpret with any precision. Some of the pieces may actually be by English composers and only mistakenly ascribed to Binchois, but it is dangerous to use style as a criterion for attribution in that repertory. Moreover, the city of Bruges, where the Burgundian court often resided, was a vital point of both commercial and cultural interchange between England and the continental mainland; several other composers from that area show bafflingly English details in their style. Some writers refer to the chant paraphrase in the middle voice of two hymns and a Kyrie as being in the English style: indeed it is, but the same is found in two hymns, a Kyrie and a sequence by Du Fay. If these are exclusively English fingerprints – and evidence has yet to be brought to prove it – then they merely confirm Martin le Franc’s testimony that both composers were influenced by English music.
The two works of Binchois which were demonstrably known in England are songs. Vostre tres doulx is mentioned twice in the works of John Skelton, and its tenor appears in two English manuscripts. Dueil angoisseus was used for a mass cycle by Bedyngham who may never have left England; and the song itself has so many characteristics of English style that it would be tempting to doubt his authorship were it not that it is ascribed (as is Vostre tres doulx) in the most authoritative of all Binchois manuscripts and sets a poem by Christine de Pizan. In such cases interchange of ideas between English and continental musicians seems clear, as indeed it was inevitable, even though evidence of its influence on subsequent English music is negligible.
Although music of Binchois appears in over 50 manuscripts of the 15th century, the survival of many pieces in only one source implies a substantial loss over the centuries. The very diversity of format in his smaller sacred pieces, for instance, gives reason to suspect that more is buried in the anonymity of Trent codices 90 and 88. In this way history has perhaps favoured Binchois less than Du Fay, who spent much of his active life in that part of Europe where most of the major surviving manuscripts were prepared.
Binchois the songwriter is most strongly represented in GB-Ob Canon.misc.213 (copied probably between 1428 and 1436), which contains nearly half of his secular music, most of it ascribed to him in that source only; since several of the Binchois ascriptions are over erasures it is possible (as Schoop suggested) that the manuscript was revised by somebody close to the composer. I-TRmn 92 and the related manuscript AO 15 are similarly responsible for most of the mass sections while the Magnificat settings and smaller sacred pieces are mostly in MOe α.X.1.11. These four manuscripts, which account for most of what is known of his work, were copied in Italy, far from the Burgundian court where he spent his life.
In the few surviving northern sources he is poorly represented. The Cambrai choirbooks (F-CA 6 and 11) contain only five Binchois works between them. The chansonnier E-E V.III.24 (EscA), written in the north, has excellent readings but unfortunately very few ascriptions, and may thus contain more Binchois songs than we now know (see Kemp, 1990). A northern-looking hand of unusual authority added two Binchois pieces (Kyrie ‘Cunctipotens’ and Magnificat primi toni) to an otherwise Italian manuscript, I-Bu 2216.
Northern origin seems probable for an extremely important source, D-Mbs Mus.Ms.3192, a fragment of four parchment bifolia containing 11 songs, some more complete than others. Eight are ascribed ‘binchois’. For the other three, the facing page which would contain the ascription is missing, though one of them, Margarite fleur de valeur, is ascribed to Binchois elsewhere. The remaining two songs are included below as probable works of Binchois on the grounds that the collection is apparently exclusively of his work. None of the songs in GB-Ob 213 is found in this Munich fragment, which may therefore contain a later repertory, perhaps from 1435–40. Such a hypothesis provides a guide to a chronology of his songs and makes it easier to see how in the early 1450s he could have written more complex works such as Comme femme, Je ne vis oncques, Tout a par moy and the textless rondeau found in the Schedelsches Liederbuch (D-Mbs Cgm 810).
Binchois belongs to the first generation of composers for whom the rondeau was the dominant form in secular song. For the rest of the 15th century over three-quarters of the polyphonic song repertory was to be in rondeau form. In Binchois this concentration is matched by a restriction to four- and five-line stanzas, which appear in approximately equal proportions. (Comme femme is his only rondeau with a six-line stanza.) Over three-quarters of his rondeaux have an eight-syllable line. Add to this that all but one of the songs are in triple time, and a picture emerges of a singular restriction in external stylistic features.
Courtly manners and traditions inform not only the musical form but the poetic content. Whereas the songs of his contemporaries include May Day songs, New Year’s Day songs, songs to celebrate an occasion and whimsical spoof songs, those of Binchois almost always remain firmly within the strictest courtly conventions. The Burgundian court was reputed to be the embodiment of courtly tradition; and Binchois supplied what was expected of him. Filles a marier/Se tu t’en marias is well outside this boundary, of course, but it is alone. Otherwise the nearest thing to an infringement is the mildly obscene Je ne pouroye estre joyeux; but even this remains far closer to the court code than do the equivalent songs of Du Fay or Hugo de Lantins.
His use of textures is also more restricted than that of his contemporaries. Many Du Fay songs are clearly designed to be sung by several voices, whereas little of Binchois seems suited to having more than one voice texted. For him a song almost invariably has a discantus which carries the text (sometimes with an untexted introduction), a tenor in longer notes a 5th lower in range, and a contratenor normally in the same range as the tenor but sometimes a little lower. Deviations from this format are rare, just as the textural experiments with overlapping voices so common in Du Fay’s songs do not seem to have appealed so much to Binchois.
Over all his contemporaries Binchois excelled in an effortlessness of melody. This is found not only in the unforgettable grace of De plus en plus or the restrained elegance of Mon cuer chante but more tangibly in the carefully balanced phrases of Adieu jusques je vous revoye. His melodic style is a relatively simple one involving an almost complete absence of hemiola or rhythmic intricacy. Any rhythmic displacement is confined to the lower parts and is normally restricted to a simple hemiola pattern; rhythmic complexity is apt to come only in the coda (as in Vostre tres doulx). His melodies are also characterized by a tendency for iambic or trochaic patterns to underlie apparently more complex rhythmic schemes. Most striking is the extreme economy of material, which led Reese to describe Adieu m’amour as ‘a mere perfunctory stringing together of cadence formulas’, but which when seen in the context of a careful deployment of cadential pitches, a precise balance of phrase lengths, a wide range of passing dissonances and a precisely calculated melodic peak is merely another aspect of the restrained but refined courtly tradition within which Binchois worked.
In line with this melodic perfection is a classic approach to balance. Rehm noted how many of the songs are symmetrical, in terms of their length, about the midpoint cadence. This tendency may be coincidental, and becomes less common in the later works. But in stanzas of five lines Binchois often inserted an extra untexted line as though to restore the balance between the sections. Occasionally, too, it is this added, untexted line that contains the melodic peak of the song (as in Adieu adieu, Jamais tant, Je me recommande). It is as though the poetic form was much less important than the musical design: for it is in Binchois that matching of melodic material sometimes specifically contradicts the rhyme scheme of the poem, as in Amours et souvenir where a poetic scheme of abba is set by music in the form ABA1B1. Whatever the reasons, Binchois is one of the few composers from the 15th century in whose music the poetic form of a song cannot always be deduced correctly from the music alone.
So also, there is a concern for keeping musical form free of the shackles imposed by the poetic formes fixes. The untexted prelude and postlude to Je ne pouroye are identical and imply that the music should continue nonstop in cyclic fashion; and the sectional nature of the rondeau form is thereby avoided. Similar short cuts can be found in several other Binchois songs. The idea may have come from the famous ‘circle rondeau’ of Baude Cordier, several of whose works anticipate the style of Binchois. Alongside that phenomenon, and perhaps for the same reasons, is Binchois’ odd approach to tonal centres: most famously in De plus en plus, but also in many of his other songs, the final pitch can be almost impossible to predict from what has gone before (see Slavin in Kirkman and Slavin, 2000).
Neither the chronology nor the stylistic profile of the songs can be extended to apply to the sacred music. As is perhaps inevitable for a composer so deeply committed to fulfilling specific functions, the different categories of his work are markedly different in style. The octave-leap cadence which is found in practically all his songs appears seldom in the sacred music. Major prolation, so common in the early songs, appears but twice in the sacred music, and then just to mark the contrast between sections. With one exception, tempus perfectum diminutum is found only in the multi-sectional sacred works (see Bent, 1996). The precious symmetry of the songs gives way in the mass movements to a discursive structure in which sections are contrasted by changes of texture, range and mensuration.
Before the publication of Kaye’s edition of the sacred music (1991), several writers tended to portray Binchois as primarily a song composer; that view does not correspond to either the relative quantity of his works in the various categories or the greater variety of styles and techniques found in his sacred music. According to such criteria, the mass movements are at the centre of his artistic world. Here there is a more freely articulated flow of melodic and rhythmic invention. The lower parts move more independently: their large melodic leaps, long held notes and attention-seeking patterns contrast strongly with the gentle passive accompaniments to the songs. His Credo settings include some of the longest works of their generation.
No complete cyclic mass by Binchois survives. Even though Feininger and Parris have attempted to deduce cycles from the scattered movements, none can be established with any of the kind of coherence found in the contemporary cycles of Du Fay, Dunstaple, Power, Grossin, Reson, Liebert, Johannes de Lymburgia and Arnold de Lantins, nor even that of the 14th-century cycles. Only pairs survive. These are united not by a common tenor or motto opening, but by more general stylistic features. Moreover, there is room for a reconsideration of how composers in the 1420s planned their pairing of mass movements: three independent manuscripts of high authority (GB-Ob Canon.misc.213, I-Bc Q15, TRmp 92) pair the Gloria K1a with the very different Credo K19; the much more closely matched Credo in the two Cambrai manuscripts and elsewhere in TRmp 92 (all probably after 1440) may well have been written much later to fit in with different attitudes to pairing.
In the mass movements, as in his other sacred pieces, chant is used as a basis for melodic paraphrase but apparently never as a structural foundation in the form of a long-note cantus firmus. (The few long-note tenors, Kyrie feriale, Nove cantum melodie and Veneremur virginem, have not been traced in the Gregorian repertory.) Thus for all their increased freedom in relation to the songs, his mass movements show a conservative manner in their outward shape.
Binchois wrote only one isorhythmic motet in an age when Du Fay and Dunstaple employed the form for their most dazzling technical displays. But the pattern is clear: his sacred music, apart from the Mass Ordinary settings, is mostly simple in style. Expansive writing appears in only two other motets, Veneremur virginem and Domitor Hectoris. The longer votive motet, so popular with the English composers and Johannes de Lymburgia, is almost entirely absent: four of those ascribed to Binchois are more convincingly ascribed elsewhere to English composers, and the fifth, Inter natos mulierum (second setting, K42), leaves many hints that it too is the work of an Englishman. These considerations suggest that the Burgundian court chapel was less festive and ambitious than its emulators in the south and less longwinded in its devotions than the more pretentious English establishments.
Thus also in Binchois there is also a large amount of extremely simple service music in a homophonic style, often based on melodies of the Parisian rite that was favoured at the court of Burgundy. In terms of contrapuntal complexity his Magnificat settings are positively ascetic, even when compared with the relatively simple settings by Du Fay and Dunstaple. In many such pieces fauxbourdon style is the norm, although sometimes the inner part is written out in full and shows a modicum of independence in its figuration. The most appropriate comparison is with similar works by Brassart and Johannes de Lymburgia; and in this context Binchois excels with his declamation rather than his counterpoint. Even with slightly more ambitious works, such as the Sanctus and Agnus feriale, and the Magnificat secundi toni, the counterpoint is severely functional, almost defensive in its manner. Comparison of the two versions of Asperges me shows that his main concerns were declamation and the contour of the chant paraphrase in the discantus.
Characteristic of the composer who so frequently spurned contrapuntal sophistication in favour of a supple word-setting is his tendency to cadence an otherwise regular piece on an unexpected beat. In exitu Israel consistently cadences in a manner that implies a lengthening of the last bar in a triple-time section to four beats; and the same technique is employed in some of his songs.
As a melodist Binchois scarcely had an equal in the 15th century. Ex.1 shows an extreme example of a discantus line shaped from the minimum of material. Its total reliance on conjunct movement is not typical, but it exemplifies a tendency in Binchois’ melodic writing. The manner in which the melodic repetitions are at variance with the text underlay and with the poetic scheme is absolutely characteristic of Binchois.
Details that recur in his work as both fingerprints of his style and characteristics of his individuality include the apparent ‘cross-relations’ effect in exx.2a and 2b as well as the rhythmic figure ‘a’ in ex.3. These occur repeatedly throughout his work; and while they do not predominate in the same way as the underlying trochaic rhythms (seen in exx.2, 3, 4 and 5), their presence has been used convincingly as an aid to identifying possible Binchois works among the anonymous works of the Escorial chansonnier (see Kemp).
Binchois sometimes seems a crude stylist. In ex.4 the parallel 5ths in bars 2–3 and the unisons in bar 9 are similar to many in the work of Dunstaple and Power; but as the opening gesture of a piece they are a little startling, no doubt intentionally. Parallel 5ths are relatively common in Binchois but occur almost exclusively in a single context: when two parts are moving outwards to a 12th (as in ex.4; but for an exception see ex.3, bar 4). In this manner they are still found in Ockeghem’s Requiem (and occasionally even in Josquin); but such progressions were avoided in Du Fay’s three-voice music from his earliest years, and it is in that context that the Binchois style seems strange.
Similarly, his dissonance treatment is usually less systematic and detailed than that of Du Fay. Bockholdt (1960, pp.196ff) gave several instances from the sacred music of Binchois where an easily avoided contrapuntal dissonance is nevertheless retained, and often confirmed by several manuscripts of independent authority. Ex.5 shows a frequently found cadential formula in which the internal logic of a single line is seemingly unperturbed by a momentary dissonance in another part. But perhaps the most successful treatment of dissonance is found in such cases as ex.6, where one of the parts is delayed and resolves upwards in a manner that seems characteristic of Binchois. Any suspicion that Binchois was not aware of the effects of a well-placed dissonance must surely be dispelled in the face of the insinuating manner of this gentle pushing dissonance and many like it. But it is a style that poses problems of understanding and interpretation.
If the details are problematic, the larger form is less so. The interest in overall form manifest in the structural short cuts in the rondeaux and in the mensuration schemes of the larger works is also apparent in the key scheme of several of his songs. Finscher (1958, following a lead from Besseler) showed how several of them deploy their cadences across the final and fifth degree in a manner that makes the concept of functional tonality seem applicable for the first time in Western music.
The time is not yet ripe for a judicious evaluation of Binchois’ position in musical history. Placed alongside Du Fay he inevitably suffers in the face of the inexhaustible range of techniques and ideas in the more cosmopolitan composer; and it is largely in this context that he has received an unkind press from students of 15th-century music. But his work shows no signs of having the same aims as that of Du Fay. The Burgundian court that employed Binchois was by all accounts a home of tradition; and Binchois wrote traditional music for it. His skill lay in how he handled the accepted forms, not in external innovations. The sense of tradition, closely coupled as always with the concept of a paramount ‘good taste’, resulted in a body of music that keeps fairly closely to a middle road, with nothing outrageous or startling; and from a distance this can look both unadventurous and drab. His music can be considered the classic example of the central tradition in the north, and the aims of his contemporaries and followers are most easily seen in terms of how they accepted or rejected the tradition epitomized by Binchois.
3vv unless otherwise stated
Editions:Sieben Trienter Codices … V. Auswahl, ed. R. von Ficker, DTÖ, lxi, Jg.xxxi (1924/R) [F]Polyphonia sacra, ed. C. van den Borren (Burnham, 1932, rev, 2/1962) [B]Les musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne au XVe siècle, ed. J. Marix (Paris, 1937) [M]Die Chansons von Gilles Binchois (1400–1460), ed. W. Rehm, Musikalische Denkmäler, ii (Mainz, 1957) [R no.]The Sacred Music of Gilles Binchois, ed. P. Kaye (Oxford, 1991) [K no.]
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LU |
Liber usualis |
Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
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Title |
Sources |
Editions |
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Kyrie ‘angelorum’ |
D-Mbs 14274, I-AO (twice), Bc Q15, TRmp 87 (twice), 90, 92, TRmp 93 |
K9, F 48; also ed. in Feininger (1949) |
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Chant or pairing : Kyrie ‘de angelis’ (LU 37, Mass VIII) in Ct
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Remarks : in TRmp 87, f.56v: ‘Illud Kyrie pertinet ad Et in terra’ followed by incipit of Gl K1a (below); it is difficult to justify the pairing
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Kyrie ‘apostolorum’, ‘de martiribus’ or ‘brevioris perfecta’ |
I-AO twice, TRmp 87, 90, TRmd 93 |
K10, F 49 |
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Chant or pairing : Kyrie ‘Orbis factor’ (LU 46, Mass XI) in T
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Remarks : apparently sets only the 5 solo sections of the chant
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Kyrie [Cunctipotens] |
D-Mbs 14274, I-Bu 2216, TRmp 90, TRmd 93 |
K11, F 65, M 154 |
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Chant or pairing : Kyrie ‘Cunctipotens’ (LU 25, Mass IV) paraphrased in Dc
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Kyrie ‘de domina’ or ‘de beata Maria’ |
AO, TRmp 87 |
K12, F 50 |
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Chant or pairing : Kyrie ‘cum jubilo’ (LU 40, Mass IX) in Dc
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Remarks : final Ky sections apparently missing
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Kyrie ‘feriale’ |
TRmp 87 (twice), 92 |
K13, M 158 |
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Chant or pairing : ferial Ky (GS, pl.9*) paraphrased in Dc
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Remarks : perhaps forming 3-section cycle with San and Ag feriale (see below)
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Kyrie ‘in simplici die’ |
AO, TRmp 87 |
K14, M 156 |
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Chant or pairing : T of 1st Ky also used in motet ‘Nove cantum melodie’ (see below); it is chant-like but has not been identified
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Remarks : presumably connected with either foundation of Toison d’or (1429) or baptism of Anthoine (1431), though the setting is the simplest of the Binchois Kyries
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Paired Gloria and Credo |
F-CA 6, 11; GB-Ob 213, I-Bc Q15, TRmp 92 (Gl); F-CA 6, 11, I-TRmp 92 (Cr) |
K1a-b; B 53 (Gl); M 169 (Cr) |
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Chant or pairing : pairing on basis of range, mensuration signs, texture and melodic content; MS authority only in F-CA 6 but implied in CA 11
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Remarks : alternates 2vv ‘’ with 3vv ‘’; in GB-Ob 213, I-Bc Q15 and TRmp 92 Gl is paired with Cr K19, which is quite different in style; Gl ed. in Feininger (1949)
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Paired Gloria and Credo ‘brevioris imperfecta per medium’ |
I-AO (twice), TRmp 92 (Gl); AO (Cr) |
K2a-b; F 42 (Gl) |
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Chant or pairing : paired in AO
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Remarks : title from index of AO; C throughout
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Paired Gloria ‘hominibus’ and Credo ‘factorem’ |
AO (twice), TRmp 87, 92 (Gl); AO, TRmp 87, 92, F-CA 11 (Cr) |
K3a-b; F 55, 58 |
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Chant or pairing : paired in AO and TRmp 87
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Remarks : titles from indexes of AO, TRmp 92; texture alternates high Ct with low, and other sections in 4vv, cf Du Fay’s Sanctus ‘papale’
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Gloria |
TRmp 92 |
K16, F 44 |
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Gloria |
F-CA 11, I-AO, TRmp 87, 92 |
K17, M 163 |
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Chant or pairing : this and next setting possibly a pair in terms of range, texture, material and tonality; but not of scribal authority
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Remarks : alternating 3vv and 2vv
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Credo |
TRmp 92 |
K18, M 176 |
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Remarks : alternating 3vv and 2vv; the 2-v music is all in the carol ‘Pray for us’, ed. in MB, iv (1952), no.106
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Credo ‘aversi’ or ‘autenti triti irregularis’ (Tinctoris) |
F-CA 11, GB-Ob 213, I-Bc Q15, TRmp 92 |
K19, B 63; also ed. in Feininger (1949) |
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Chant or pairing : paired in 3 sources with Gl K1a, though not a pair musically
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Remarks : alternating 3vv and 2vv; title ‘aversi’ from index of GB-Ob 213; section ‘Qui ex patre Filioque procedit’ cited in Tinctoris, CS, iv, 170
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Paired Sanctus and Agnus |
I-AO, TRmp 90, 92, TRmd 93 (San); AO, TRmp 90, TRmd 93 (Ag) |
K4a-b; F 53, 55 |
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Chant or pairing : paired in 3 sources and in use of chants from Mass XV in Dc
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Paired Sanctus and Agnus [for low voices] |
AO, TRmp 92 (San); AO, TRmp 92, TRmd 93 (no.1827b, following 1st section of Ag by Ja. de Clibano (Ag); Ag frag. in B-Bc 33346 |
K5a-b; F 51, 53 |
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Chant or pairing : paired in 2 sources and in use of chants from Mass XVII in Dc
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Remarks : 3vv except for word ‘Osanna’ which is 2vv; also ed. in Feininger (1949) as last 2 sections of a Missa ‘de angelis’
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Paired Sanctus and Agnus [feriale] |
AO, TRmp 92 (San); AO, TRmp 92 (Ag) |
K6a-b; M 182 (San); F 50 (Ag) |
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Chant or pairing : paired in AO and in use of chants from Mass XVIII in Dc
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Remarks : fauxbourdon style: perhaps forming 3-section cycle with Ky ‘feriale’ (see above); opening sections closely related to San in GB-Lbl Eg.3307, ed. G. McPeek, The British Museum Manuscript Egerton 3307 (Oxford, 1963), 51
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Paired Sanctus and Agnus |
AO, TRmp 92, SI-Lnr 71 (San); I-AO, TRmp 88, 92 (3 times), SI-Lnr 71 (Ag) |
K7a-b; M 183 (Ag) |
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Chant or pairing : paired in I-AO and SI-Lnr 71
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Remarks : alternating 3vv and 2vv
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Paired Sanctus and Agnus |
GB-Ob Mus.c.60, I-TRmp 87 |
K8 |
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Chant or pairing : San setting with words of Ag also underlaid; San chant from Mass IV lightly embellished in Dc
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Remarks : Kovarik (1973, pp.451–65) made strong case for Eng. origin, pointing in particular to Eng. chant and duo sections
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Sanctus |
AO, f.147 |
K20 |
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Remarks : only use of C mensuration in his sacred music
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Agnus Dei |
TRmp 92 |
K21, M 185 |
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Chant or pairing : c.f. similar to Ag of Mass IX in higher T
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Remarks : 4vv with middle section in 3vv; 2 voices are marked ‘tenor’, taking turns to function as structural centre; for almost certain matching San identified by Gozzi, see ‘Doubtful works' below
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Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
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Title |
Editions |
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In exitu Israel (Ps cxiii) |
K40, M 196 |
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Sources : I-Fn 112bis, MOe α.X.1.11
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Chant or pairing : tonus peregrinus (LU 160) in Dc; ant, AS, pl.109, in Dc
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Remarks : fauxbourdon style; followed by Sarum ant ‘Nos qui vivimus’ and liturgically superfluous ‘Amen’
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Magnificat primi toni |
K22, M 131 |
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Sources : I-Bu 2216, MOe; Rvat S Pietro B80 (odd vv. only); Fn 112bis (even vv. only); TRmp 90 (even vv. only, rev.)
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Chant or pairing : LU 213 elaborated in Dc
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Remarks : mostly in loose fauxbourdon style; I-MOe has dual ascription to Du Fay and Binchois; possibly dual authorship
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Magnificat secundi toni |
K23, M 138 |
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Sources : I-Fn 112bis, MOe; TRmp 90 (even vv. only); Rvat S Pietro B80 (odd vv. only, with 3rd voice added)
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Chant or pairing : LU 214 elaborated in Dc
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Remarks : verses alternate 2vv and 3vv
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Magnificat tercii toni |
K24, M 144 |
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Sources : MOe (even vv. only)
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Chant or pairing : LU 215 elaborated in Dc
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Remarks : loose fauxbourdon style
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Magnificat [quarti toni] |
K25, M 148 |
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Sources : TRmp 87
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Chant or pairing : LU 216 in Dc
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Remarks : fauxbourdon style
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Magnificat sexti toni ad omnes versus [= rondeau: Mort en merchy] |
K26, R 32, M 69 |
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Sources : D-Mbs 14274
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Chant or pairing : ? LU 211 elaborated in Dc, but cadencing at the midpoint on E rather than F
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Remarks : ?contrafactum; 1 stanza of music only; though unlike 15th-century Mag settings, it is even more unlike a rondeau; ascription ‘Egidius Pinchoys’
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Magnificat octavi toni |
K27 |
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Sources : I-MOe (even vv. only)
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Chant or pairing : LU 218 elaborated in Dc
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Te Deum laudamus |
K48, M 219 |
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Sources : I-Md 2269 (2vv), MOe, Rvat S Pietro B80, VEcap DCCLXI; E-SE (vv.1–6, 4vv with newly composed contratenor and bassus)
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Chant or pairing : LU 1834 in Dc
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon; earliest polyphonic setting apart from 2 frags. in Eng. sources
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Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
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Text |
Editions |
Chant |
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A solis ortus cardine |
K28, M 188 |
LU 400 in Ct |
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Sources : I-AO, TRmp 92, D-Kl 4° mus.259
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Form : hymn, Christmas
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Remarks : text by Sedulius, Analecta hymnica, l (Leipzig, 1907), 58
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Asperges me (i) (verse: Miserere mei) |
K29 |
LU 11 in Dc |
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Sources : I-AO, TRmp 87, 90, 92 (with discantus altered to setting ii), TRmd 93
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Form : ant, Mass Ordinary
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Remarks : in TRmp 90 and TRmd 93 it immediately precedes setting ii
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Asperges me (ii) (verse: Miserere mei) |
K30 |
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Sources : Bc Q15, TRmp 90, TRmd 93, Rvat S Pietro B80
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Remarks : an adaptation of K29
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Ave corpus Christi carum |
K31 |
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Sources : [= rondeau: Adieu mes tres belles amours]
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Form : ant ‘Ante Christi corpus carum’, Corpus Christi
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Remarks : contrafactum
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Ave dulce tu frumentum |
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Sources : [= ballade: Je loe Amours]
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Form : versus, Corpus Christi
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Remarks : full poem scattered among 3 such tenor contrafacta on 2 facing pages in D-Bsb 40613
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Ave regina celorum |
K32, M 189 |
LU 1864 at beginning only of Dc and T |
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Sources : I-MOe
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Form : ant, BVM
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Remarks : text has strong Eng. connections, set also in D-W 628 [W1]. fasc.xi, GB-Ob Selden B26, Lbl Add.5665 and by Frye
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Beata nobis gaudia |
K33, M 191 |
Hymn. aest. 22 in Dc |
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Sources : I-TRmp 92
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Form : hymn, Pentecost
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Remarks : text, Analecta hymnica, li (Leipzig, 1908), 97
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Da pacem Domine |
K34, M 192 |
LU 1867 in Dc |
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Sources : D-Mbs 14274, I-MOe
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Form : ant for peace
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon
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Deo gracias |
K35, M 192 |
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Sources : TRmp 92
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Form : re, Mass Ordinary
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Dixit sanctus Philippus |
K36, M 193 |
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Sources : MOe
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Form : ant, St Philip
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Domitor Hectoris Paride |
K37, de Van (1948) |
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Sources : AO
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Form : motet, Holy Cross
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Remarks : Cobin (1978) proposes 1435, for Cardinal Albergati at Peace of Arras; Strohm (1993) proposes 1429 for 10th anniversary of death of John the Fearless
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Felix namque es |
K38 |
not related to LU 1271, and not nearly so intricate as that cited by Hamm and Scott (1972) |
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Sources : AO, MOe
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Form : off, Mass of BVM
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Gloria laus et honor (verse: Israel es tu rex) |
K39, M 194 |
GS, pl.83, in Dc; related to LU 586 |
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Sources : TRmp 87
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Form : hymn, Palm Sunday
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Remarks : refrain 3vv; verses 2vv; text by Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans, Analecta hymnica, l, 160
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Inter natos mulierum (i) |
K41, M 209 |
AS, pl.573, in Dc; related to LU 1504 |
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Sources : TRmp 87
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Form : psalm ant, St John the Baptist
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Remarks : fauxbourdon style
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Inter natos mulierum (ii) |
K42, M 210 |
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Sources : MOe
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Form : psalm ant, St John the Baptist
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Nos qui vivimus |
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AS, pl.109, in Dc |
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Sources : see In exitu Israel
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Form : psalm ant, Sunday at Vespers
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Nove cantum melodie/Tanti gaude germinis/… enixa meritis [textless] tenor |
K43, M 212 |
T also used in Ky ‘In simplici die’ (see above) |
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Sources : MOe (most of 1st section missing)
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Form : isorhythmic motet
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Remarks : for baptism of Anthoine, 1st son of Philip the Good, 18 Jan 1431
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‘Passions en nouvelle maniere’ |
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Sources : lost
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Remarks : 29 May 1438 Binchois paid for having ‘fait et composé’ this book, to be placed in court chapel
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Quem terra pontus |
K44, M 218 |
chant, unidentified, in Ct |
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Sources : Vm IX 145
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Form : hymn, Purification of BVM
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Remarks : text, perhaps by Venantius Fortunatus, in Analecta hymnica, l, 86
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Rerum conditor respice |
K45 |
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Sources : [= ballade: Dueil angoisseus]
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Remarks : contrafactum
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Salve sancta parens (i) (verse: Sentiant omnes) |
K46a |
LU 1263 |
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Sources : AO, TRmd 93
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Form : int ant, Mass of BVM
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon
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Salve sancta parens (ii) |
K46b |
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Sources : AO, TRmp 90, TRmd 93 (twice)
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Remarks : 3vv with discantus identical with previous setting; verse and doxology identical with setting i
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Sancti Dei omnes |
K47, M 218 |
AS, pl.569, in Dc closest version |
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Sources : MOe
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Form : psalm ant, All Saints
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon
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Ut queant laxis |
K49, M 226 |
as set by Du Fay in CMM, v, 61 |
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Sources : D-Mbs 14274, I-Vm IX 145
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Form : hymn, St John the Baptist
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon; text, by Paulus Diaconus, in Analecta hymnica, l, 120
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Veneremur virginem |
K50 |
long-note T c.f., unidentified |
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Sources : AO
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Form : seq, Assumption of BVM
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Veni Creator Spiritus |
K51 |
LU 885 in Dc |
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Sources : TRmp 92
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Form : hymn, Pentecost
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Remarks : 2vv + fauxbourdon; also ed. in DTÖ, liii, Jg.xxvii (1940/R), 89
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Virgo rosa venustatis |
K52 |
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Sources : [= rondeau: C’est assez]
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Remarks : contrafactum
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Vox de celo ad Anthonium |
K53, M 231 |
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Sources : MOe
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Form : ant, St Anthony, hermit
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Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
Sources in this and following 3 sections cited only to note unica or to make adjustments to the otherwise complete listing in R.
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Text |
Edition |
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Adieu adieu mon joyeulx souvenir |
R 1 |
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Remarks : ascription in GB-Ob 213 over an erasure; 2 versions of Ct
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Adieu jusques je vous revoye |
R 2 |
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Remarks : cited twice in Molinet
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Adieu m’amour et ma maistresse |
R 3 |
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Adieu ma dulce [no more text] |
R 4 |
|
Source observations : D-Mbs 14274 only
|
|
|
Adieu mes tres belles amours [= motet: Ave corpus Christi carum] |
R 5 |
|
Source observations : also 3 intabulations in D-Mbs 3725 (Buxheim)
|
|
|
Remarks : cited in Molinet; only Dc and T are by Binchois since the Ct is different in each source and entirely omitted in the most authoritative source, E-E V.III.24
|
|
|
Ainsi que a la foiz m’y souvient |
|
|
Source observations : lost
|
|
|
Remarks : possibly composed in 1424, see Desplanque (1865); the context does not specify whether the poem was set or written by Binchois
|
|
|
Amoureux suy et me vient toute joye |
R 6 |
|
Amours et qu’as tu en pensé |
R 7 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Amours et souvenir de celle |
R 8 |
|
Source observations : Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Ay douloureux disant helas |
R 9 |
|
Source observations : Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Bien puist [no more text] |
R 10 |
|
Source observations : F-Sm 222 only
|
|
|
C’est assez pour morir de dueil [= motet: Virgo rosa venustatis] |
R 11 |
|
Comme femme desconfortée |
R 56 |
|
Remarks : for further sources and later works based on it, see Fallows (1999); authorship suggested as doubtful in Atlas (1975)
|
|
|
De plus en plus se renouvelle |
R 12 |
|
Source observations : ascription in GB-Ob 213 over an erased ascription to Arnold de Lantins
|
|
|
Remarks : cited in Molinet; T used for mass by Ockeghem, in which Henze (1968) found the numerological acrostic ‘Egidius de Binche’
|
|
|
Depuis le congié que je pris |
CMM, lxxvii (1980), 6 |
|
Source observations : D-Mbs 3192, E-E V.III.24
|
|
|
Remarks : attrib. on the basis of presence in Mbs 3192, f.13. of the 2 lower parts; facing verso probably contained ascription to Binchois, as do all surviving versos in this MS
|
|
|
En regardant vostre tres doulx maintieng |
R 13 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Remarks : text perhaps by Alain Chartier; first stanza set to related music, 4vv, in c15289, ed. in CMM, xciii/4, no.3
|
|
|
En sera il mieulx a vostre cuer |
R 14 |
|
Source observations : I-Rvat Urb. lat. 1411 only
|
|
|
Esclave puist yl devenir |
R 15 |
|
Source observations : only intabulation in D-Mbs 3725 is no.102
|
|
|
Remarks : cited twice in Molinet, basis of mass-motet cycle in I-TRmp 88
|
|
|
Helas que poray je plus faire |
R 16 |
|
Source observations : D-Mbs 3192 only
|
|
|
Remarks : final text line illegible
|
|
|
Jamais tant que je vous revoye (i) |
R 17a |
|
Source observations : F-Pn n.a.fr.6771 only; text also in Jardin de plaisance, f.92v
|
|
|
Remarks : C mensuration; anon.
|
|
|
Jamais tant que je vous revoye (ii) |
R 17 |
|
Remarks : mensuration; more florid reworking of R 17 A
|
|
|
Je me recommande humblement |
R 18 |
|
Je ne fay tousjours que penser |
R 19 |
|
Remarks : cited in Molinet
|
|
|
Je ne pouroye estre joyeux |
R 20 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Remarks : earlier ascription to ‘Ar. de Lantins’ erased and replaced by one to Binchois
|
|
|
Je ne vis oncques le pareille |
R 57 |
|
Source observations : ascription not in D-Mbs 810 but in F-Pn 57
|
|
|
Remarks : contrary ascription to Du Fay; sung at ‘Banquet du voeu’ in Lille (1454); Basiron’s virelai ‘Nul ne l’a telle’ contains musical and textual citation of opening of Dc; for many later quotations, see Fallows (1999)
|
|
|
Joyeux penser et souvenir |
R 21 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
La merchi ma dame et Amours |
R 22 |
|
L’amy de ma dame est venu |
R 23 |
|
Source observations : I-TRmp 87 only
|
|
|
Remarks : T related to basse danse ‘Maistresse’, only 1 stanza of text survives
|
|
|
Les tres doulx ieux du viaire ma dame |
R 24 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Remarks : ascription over an erasure
|
|
|
Liesse m’a mandé salut |
R 25 |
|
Source observations : ascription not in E-E V.III.24 but in GB-Ob 213
|
|
|
Remarks : contrary ascription to Grossin
|
|
|
Ma léesse a changié son non |
R 26 |
|
Source observations : Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Margarite fleur de valeur |
R 27 |
|
Remarks : ?for Margaret of Burgundy (d 1441)
|
|
|
Mes yeulx ont fait mon cuer porter |
R 28 |
|
Source observations : Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Mon cuer chante joyeusement |
R 29 |
|
Source observations : add text sources listed in Fallows (1999); music also in D-Bk 78 C 28
|
|
|
Remarks : text perhaps by Charles d’Orléans; cited in Molinet
|
|
|
Mon doulx espoir tres desireux las [no more text] |
R 30 |
|
Source observations : I-Rvat Urb.lat.1411 only
|
|
|
Mon seul et souverain desir |
R 31 |
|
Source observations : text listed by Rehm in D-Bk 78 B 17 is a different poem
|
|
|
Remarks : clefless, see Dahlhaus (1964)
|
|
|
Mort en merchy [no more text] [= Magnificat sexti toni] |
R 32 |
|
Source observations : Mbs 14274 only
|
|
|
Remarks : if this is a rondeau it is one with a 3-line stanza, otherwise extremely rare in 15th-century song
|
|
|
Nous vous verens bien Malebouche |
R 33 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Remarks : text in Rehm can be completed from Jardin de plaisance
|
|
|
Plains de plours et gemissemens |
R 34 |
|
Remarks : ascription over an erased ascription to A. de Lantins
|
|
|
Pour prison ne pour maladie |
R 35 |
|
Source observations : for text sources, see Fallows (1999)
|
|
|
Remarks : text perhaps by Alain Chartier; cited twice in Molinet; Pullois, ‘Pour prison’, includes direct citations
|
|
|
Qui veut mesdire si mesdie |
R 36 |
|
Source observations : F-Pn n.a.fr.6771 only; but also intabulated in D-Mbs 3725 (Buxheim) and text in F-Pn fr.1719
|
|
|
Quoy que Dangier, Malebouche et leur gent |
R 37 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Rendre me vieng a vous sauve la vie |
R 38 |
|
Source observations : text also in A-Wn 2619
|
|
|
Remarks : acrostic: ROBIN HOQVEREL (not Robin Verel, as in Marix and Reese); text perhaps by Chartier
|
|
|
Se je souspire, plains et pleure |
R 39 |
|
Source observations : F-Pn n.a.fr.6771 only
|
|
|
Se j’eusse un seul peu d’esperanche |
R 40 |
|
Se la belle n’a le voloir |
R 41 |
|
Source observations : ascription not in E-E V.III.24 but in I-TRmp 87
|
|
|
Seule esgaree de tout joieulx plaisir |
R 42 |
|
Source observations : ascription not in E-E V.III.24 but in I-Rvat Urb.lat.1411
|
|
|
Remarks : mensuration: C; only Binchois song not in triple time; citations in Brown (1963), 274
|
|
|
Tant plus ayme tant plus suy mal amé |
R 43 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Tout a par moy afin qu’on ne me voye |
R 58 |
|
Remarks : 2 contrary ascriptions to Walter Frye; cited twice in Molinet; to later refs. in Fallows (1999), add text citation in ballade ‘Ung jour allant’, in Jardin de plaisance, f.202r
|
|
|
Toutes mes joyes sont estaintes |
R 44 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Tristre plaisir et douleureuse joie |
R 45 |
|
Source observations : Ob 213 only; ed. not in Early English Harmony but in OHM, ii/2 (1905), 177
|
|
|
Remarks : text by Alain Chartier and sung by Jean Régnier on his release from prison in 1433; T related to basse danse ‘Triste plaisir’ but probably not to monophonic rondeau in F-Pn 9346; basis of Ernst Pepping’s ‘Zwei Orchesterstücke über eine Chanson de Binchois’ (1959)
|
|
|
Vostre alee me desplaist tant |
R 46 |
|
Vostre tres doulx regart plaisant |
R 47 |
|
Source observations : T alone also in GB-Lbl Harl.1512, f.2; source in Lbl 5665 is 2vv using only the tenor of Binchois, text in Lbl Lansdowne 380
|
|
|
Remarks : cited twice in garbled form in the work of John Skelton
|
|
|
[textless] |
— |
|
Source observations : D-Mbs cgm 810, f.71v-72r, ‘Binzois’
|
|
|
Remarks : normally read as ‘Buczois’ and attrib. Busnois
|
|
Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Text |
Edition |
|
|
|
|
Adieu mon amoureuse joye |
R 48 |
|
Source observations : text for 1st stanza also in Namur, Archives de l’Etat, Reg. aux transports, 12, f.320
|
|
|
Amours merchi de trestout mon pooir |
R 49 |
|
Source observations : complete in both sources
|
|
|
Remarks : only 2 stanzas of text survive
|
|
|
Dueil angoisseus rage demeseurée [= motet: Rerum conditor respice] |
R 50 |
|
Source observations : Rehm printed 2 versions: (i) 3vv, (ii) 4vv, which seems to be the earliest state; he omitted what seems to be the latest and most widely distributed version, found in most sources, ed. E. Droz and G. Thibault, Poètes et musiciens du XVe siècle (Paris, 1924), where completion of poem is also found
|
|
|
Remarks : text by Christine de Pizan; for further sources and later citations, see Fallows (1999)
|
|
|
J’ay tant de deul que nul homs peut avoir |
R 51 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
|
Je loe Amours et ma dame mercye [= versus: Ave dulce tu frumentum] |
R 52 |
|
Source observations : also in fragment owned by Stanley Boorman
|
|
|
Remarks : only 2 stanzas of text survive; intabulations discussed in Funck (1933); for later arrangements and citations, see Fallows (1999)
|
|
|
Ma dame que j’ayme et croy |
R 53 |
|
Source observations : D-Mbs 3192 only
|
|
|
Remarks : only 1 stanza of text survives; perhaps connected with Croy family, powerful in Burgundian court
|
|
|
Mesdisans m’ont cuidié desfaire |
R 54 |
|
Source observations : GB-Ob 213 only
|
|
Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
|
… Et osci [only the 2 lower parts extant] |
Slavin (1987), after p.143 |
D-Mbs 3192, f.19 |
facing verso probably contained ascription to Binchois, as do all surviving versos in this MS |
Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
|
Filles a marier ne vous mariez ja/[Se tu t’en marias] |
R 55 |
I-Rvat Urb.lat.1411 only |
4vv; form aabb; text and later history of the tenor in Picker (1965); the 3 other parts are imitative and should probably all carry the text, frag. in source, but more complete in different setting in E-Sc 5–1–43; basse danse ‘Filles a marier’ unrelated musically |
Binchois, Gilles de Bins dit: Works
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Title |
Source or editions |
|
|
|
|
Mass cycle with troped Kyrie ‘Omnipotens Pater’ |
B-Br 5557 |
|
Remarks : ed. in EECM, xxxiv (1989); now ascribed ‘G. Binchois’ though as recently as 1844 it read ‘Jean Plourmel’, see Staehelin (1973); Eng. style in fasc. devoted to Eng. work, musically reminiscent of Walter Frye, though the more intricate melismatic writing with smaller note values suggests an even later date, perhaps from the 1470s
|
|
|
Missa ‘Pax vobis ego sum’ (Gl and Cr only), 5vv |
I-TRmp 88 |
|
Remarks : ed. in Monumenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 1st ser., ii (Rome, 1952), attrib. Binchois or Eloy; no reasons given
|
|
|
Gloria |
K54, F 46 |
|
Remarks : contrary ascription to Ja. de Clibano in I-AO, where it appears with matching Cr and Ag, the latter also ascribed to Clibano
|
|
|
Gloria |
K15, M 160 |
|
Remarks : in a style otherwise unknown in the work of Binchois and showing strong influence of Ciconia; Bockholdt indentified its pair as the Cr (F 25) ascribed in I-TRmp 92 to ‘Jo Bodoil’ and elsewhere to ‘Anglicanus’ and ‘Anglicus’; perhaps a scribe misread a hastily written ‘Bodoil’ as the more familiar ‘Binchois’
|
|
|
Sanctus, 4vv, with trope ‘Marie filius’ |
TRmp 90, TRmd 93 |
|
Remarks : ed. M. Gozzi in Kirkman and Slavin (2000), where it is shown that this must be the pair to the 4-v Agnus Dei K21
|
|
|
Magnificat sexti toni |
CMM, i/5, 75 |
|
Remarks : ascribed variously to Dunstaple and Du Fay, but in I-TRmp 92 with erased ascription to Binchois; normally considered to be by Du Fay
|
|
|
Alma Redemptoris mater |
MB, viii, no.40 |
|
Remarks : ascribed variously to Dunstaple and Leonel; I-Bc Q15 has ascription to Binchois that is crossed out and replaced by ‘Leonelle’ in another hand
|
|
|
Beata Dei genitrix |
K56, MB, viii, no.41 |
|
Remarks : ascribed in D-Mbs and I-MOe to Dunstaple, in AO with illegible ascription and in Bc Q15 to Binchois, there might just be an argument for accepting the Binchois attrib. on stylistic grounds
|
|
|
Beata mater |
K55, MB, viii, no.42 |
|
Remarks : in TRmp 87 an earlier Dunstaple ascription is erased and replaced by one to Binchois; nevertheless ascriptions to Dunstaple in I-MOe and D-Mbs 14274 seem convincing, especially since the piece appears (anonymously) in the insular MS GB-Ob Selden B26
|
|
|
Beata viscera |
I-AO, f.10 |
|
Remarks : comm; ed. in Cobin, no.10; indirectly proposed in Dangel-Hofmann (1975), 113, as part of a BVM proper cycle with K46 (int) and K38 (off)
|
|
|
Quam pulchra es |
MB, viii, no.44 |
|
Remarks : although 3 authoritative MSS ascribe to Dunstaple, I-AO ascribes ‘Egidius’; in view of the excellence of the piece the only Egidius who comes into question would be Binchois, and many features in it are not all unlike his style; on the other hand, to accept this would seriously confuse most received opinion on Eng. style in the 15th century
|
|
|
Virgo prefulgens |
K57, M 227 |
|
Remarks : in I-TRmp 92 1st 30 bars of discantus are copied and ascribed ‘Winchois’; but the scribe abandoned the piece; there is no reason to disbelieve ascription to Sandley in I-MOe; see Standley
|
|
|
Adieu ma tresbelle maistresse |
CMM, lxxxvi (1980), 16 |
|
Remarks : attrib. on stylistic grounds in Kemp (1990); Slavin (1987) sees the trimmed ascription in I-TRmp as being to Binchois; text perhaps by Charles d’Orléans, see Fallows (1999)
|
|
|
Ce moys de may |
CMM, i/6, 59 |
|
Remarks : ascribed in GB-Ob 213 to Du Fay; Kiesewetter, knowing only the anon. F-Pn 6771 source, attrib. Binchois on basis of line ‘Carissime Du Fay vous en prie’ and of assumption that Binchois was Du Fay’s closest friend; more recent scholarship amends the line and agrees that this must be genuine Du Fay; but Kiesewetter’s publication as Binchois’ in Schicksale und Beschaffenheit (1841) represented the only published ‘Binchois’ for Fétis and Ambros and until Riemann’s Sechs bisher nicht gedruckte dreistimmige Chansons (1892)
|
|
|
Je cuidoye estre conforté |
R 60 |
|
Remarks : attrib. in Rehm (1952), 144–5
|
|
|
Va tost mon amoureux desir |
R 59 |
|
Remarks : text by Charles d’Orléans: attrib. by Marix (1939), 188, and Rehm (1952), 144–5
|
|
|
Songs in GB-Ob 213 |
CMM, ix/4 |
|
Remarks : Reaney tentatively attrib. the following rondeaux: Dame que j’ay lointamp servie, Espris d’amours l’autre jour, Faisons bonne chiere et lie, Soyés loyal a vo povoir, Veuillés hoster de che dangier
|
|
|
Songs in E-E V.III.24 |
CMM, lxxviii (1980) |
|
Remarks : Kemp (1990), 3–64, attrib. the following on the basis of style: Adieu ma tresbelle maistresse, Bien viengnant ma tres redoubtee, De ceste joieuse advenue, Je ne porroye plus durer, Je vous salue ma maistresse, La tresorire de bonté, L’une tresbelle clere lune, Mon coeur avoec vous s’en va; more tentatively he attrib.: Bien viegnés mon prinche gracieux, Je n’atens plus de resconfort, L’onneur de vous dame sans per, Tous desplaisir m’en sont, Va t’en mon desir gracieux
|
|
HarrisonMMB; ReeseMR
A. Desplanque: ‘Projet d’assassinat de Philippe le Bon par les anglais (1424–1426)’, Mémoires couronnés et autres mémoires publiés par l’Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, xxxiii (1865–7), 3–78; pubd separately (Brussels, 1867)
L. Devillers, ed.: Cartulaire des comtes de Hainaut (Brussels, 1881–96)
A. Pinchart: Archives des arts, sciences et lettres, iii (Ghent, 1881) [with first full biographical study]
G. Decamps and A.Wins, eds.: Description abrégée des villes … du Hainaut, Societé des bibliophiles de Mons, Publications [xxix] (Mons, 1885) [Fr. trans. of Lat. orig. (1534)]
F.X. Haberl: ‘Wilhelm du Fay’, VMw, i (1885), 397–530
E. Matthieu: Biographie du Hainaut (Enghien, 1901–5)
A. Demeuldre: Le chapitre de Saint-Vincent à Soignies, ses dignitaires et ses chanoines (Soignies, 1902); also as Annales du Cercle archéologique du canton de Soignies, iii (1902)
A. Demeuldre: Les obituaires de la collégiale de Saint-Vincent à Soignies (Soignies, 1904); also as Annales du Cercle archéologique du canton de Soignies, ii/2 (1904)
C. Rutherford: ‘The Forgeries of Guillaume Benoit’, English Historical Review, xxx (1915), 216–33
E. Closson: ‘L’origine de Gilles Binchois’, RdM, v (1924), 149–51
E. Dahnk: ‘Musikausübung an den Höfen von Burgund und Orléans während des 15. Jahrhunderts’, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, xxv (1935), 184–215
J. Marix: Histoire de la musique et des musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne sous le règne de Philippe le Bon (1420–1467) (Strasbourg, 1939)
H. van der Linden: Itinéraires de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (1419–1467), et de Charles, comte de Charolais (1433–1467) (Brussels, 1940)
A. Dewitte: ‘De geestelijkheid van de Brugse Lieve-Vrouwkerk in de 16e eeuw’, Handelingen van het genootschap voor geschiedenis gesticht onder de benaming Société d’émulation te Brugge, cvii (1970), 100–35
C. Wright: ‘Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions’, JAMS, xxviii (1975), 175–229, esp. 179–80, 203–4
M. Schuler: ‘Neues zur Biographie von Gilles Binchois’, AMw, xxxiii (1976), 68–78
C. Wright: Music at the Court of Burgundy, 1354–1419: a Documentary Study (Henryville, PA, 1979)
R. Strohm: Music in Late Medieval Bruges (Oxford, 1985, 2/1990)
E. Panofsky: ‘Who is Jan van Eyck’s “Tymotheos”?’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xii (1949), 80–90
E. Panofsky: Early Netherlandish Painting (Cambridge, MA, 1953), i, 196–7
J. Kreps: Gilles de Binche, 1460–1960 (Leuven, 1960); also in Hainaut-tourisme, lxxxiii (Mons, 1960), 13, Musica sacra ‘Sancta sancte’, lxi (1960), 112
R. Mullally: ‘The So-called Hawking Party at the Court of Philip the Good: a Study of a Burgundian Primitive of 1431’, Gazette des beaux-arts, lxxxix (1977), 109–12
W. Wood: ‘A New Identification of the Sitter in Jan van Eyck’s Tymotheos Portrait’, Art Bulletin, lx (1978), 650–54
T. Seebass: ‘Prospettive dell’iconografia musicale: considerazioni di un medievalista’, RIM, xviii (1983), 67–86 [with discussion of the ‘Tymotheos’ portrait]
E.E. Lowinsky: ‘Jan van Eyck’s Tymotheos: Sculptor or Musician? with an Investigation of the Autobiographic Strain in French Poetry from Rutebeuf to Villon’, Studi musicali, xiii (1984), 33—105
T. Seebass: ‘Lady Music and her protegés: from Musical Allegory to Musicians’ Portraits’, MD, xlii (1988), 23–61 [with discussion of the ‘Tymotheos’ portrait]
D. Jansen: ‘Jan van Eycks Selbsbildnis’, Pantheon, xlvii (1989), 36–48
J. Paviot: ‘The Sitter for Jan van Eyck's Léal Souvenir’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, lviii (1995), 210–15
L. Campbell: National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth-century Netherlandish Schools (London, 1998), 218–33
H. Riemann: Introduction to Sechs bisher nicht gedruckte dreistimmige Chansons von Gilles Binchois (Wiesbaden, 1892)
R. Ficker: ‘Die frühen Messenkompositionen der Trienter Codices’, SMw, xi (1924), 3–58, esp. 20–27
H. Funck: ‘Eine Chanson von Binchois im Buxheimer Orgel- und Locheimer Liederbuch’, AcM, v (1933), 3–13 [Je loe Amours]
W. Gurlitt: Preface to Gilles Binchois: Sechzehn weltliche Lieder zu drei Stimmen, Cw, xxii (1933/R)
E. Dannemann: Die spätgotische Musiktradition in Frankreich und Burgund vor dem Auftreten Dufays (Strasbourg, 1936/R)
L. Feininger: Introduction to G. Binchois: Missa de angelis, Documenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 1st ser., v (Rome, 1949)
H. Besseler: Bourdon und Fauxbourdon: Studien zum Ursprung der niederländischen Musik (Leipzig, 1950, rev., enlarged 2/1974 by P. Gülke)
W. Rehm: Das Chansonwerk von Gilles Binchois (diss., U. of Freiburg, 1952); extracts pubd in Musikalische Denkmäler, ii (1957)
L. Finscher: Review of W. Rehm, ed.: Die Chansons von Gilles Binchois, Musikalische Denkmäler, ii (Mainz, 1957), Mf, xi (1958), 113
R. Bockholdt: Die frühen Messenkompositionen von Guillaume Dufay (Tutzing, 1960), esp. chap.6: ‘Die Messenkompositionen von Dufay und von Binchois’, 184–204
Roland-Manuel, ed.: Histoire de la musique, i (Paris, 1960) [sections on secular music by G. Thibault, pp.897–900, and on sacred music by L. Schrade, pp.971–4]
J.A. Boucher: The Religious Music of Gilles Binchois (diss., Boston U., 1963)
C. Dahlhaus: ‘Zu einer Chanson von Binchois’, Mf, xvii (1964), 398–9 [Mon seul et souverain desir]
S.W. Kenney: Walter Frye and the ‘Contenance Angloise’ (New Haven, CT, 1964), 176ff
A. Parris: The Sacred Works of Gilles Binchois (diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1965) [incl. edn]
M. Picker: ‘The Cantus Firmus in Binchois’s Files a marier’, JAMS, xviii (1965), 235–6
C.J. Maas: Geschiedenis van het meerstemmig Magnificat tot omstreeks 1525 (Groningen, 1967)
G. Reaney: Preface to Early Fifteenth-century Music, iv: Anonymous Chansons from the Ms Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 213, CMM, xi/4 (1969)
E. Kovarik: Mid Fifteenth-Century Polyphonic Elaborations of the Plainchant Ordinarium Missae (diss., Harvard U., 1973), esp. 324–58
A. Atlas: The Cappella Giulia Chansonnier (Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, CG.XIII.27) (New York, 1975–6), 183ff [on Comme femme]
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