(fl ?1360–90). French composer and theorist. In the Règles de la seconde rhétorique (see Langlois) he is named immediately after Machaut as a ‘maistre … lequel tenoit à Paris escolle de musique’. His works, however, survive in the Chantilly Manuscript (F-CH 564), the chief source for the secular works of the papal singers Matheus de Sancto Johanne, Hasprois and Haucourt. It therefore seemed likely that Vaillant should be identified with a capellanus Johannes Valentis or Valhant, who was enrolled by Clement VI in the papal chapel at Avignon on 26 November 1352 and continued in papal service until he died in 1361, probably during the plague epidemic. But that assumption is contradicted in an anonymous Hebrew treatise by a Parisian student of Vaillant (I-Fn Magl.III 70, described in Adler): according to Adler these student’s notes from lectures on music show that Vaillant’s activity extended into the late 14th century, so it is far more probable that he was one of the men with that extremely common name who are documented in high positions in the court of the Duke of Berry between 1377 and 1387 – the ‘clerc des offices de l’ostel’ in 1377, or the secretarius in 1385 who in 1387 became keeper of the duke’s seal. Another possible candidate is ‘Poitevin Jean Vaillant’ who made an ‘abrégé du roman de Brut’ in 1391, according to Delisle.
Vaillant’s polymetric style suggests that he was a younger contemporary of Machaut, a supposition reinforced by the transmission of his five works in the Chantilly Manuscript. According to an entry in the manuscript, however, the double-texted rondeau was copied in Paris in 1369, which would place it rhythmically in advance of Machaut’s style. Only his ballade is fully in the style of Machaut. Vaillant’s rondeau Pour ce que je ne say is isorhythmic and was conceived as a richly syncopated instructional piece for his pupils. The other two rondeaux are polytextual. The style of his virelai, too, with its ‘realistic’ bird-calls and cross-rhythms (four against three), is substantially different from Machaut, without extending to the complexities of the Ars Subtilior. It must have been one of the most popular works of its time, since it survives in nine sources, sometimes as a two-voice work, once with an added texted cantus, and also as contrafacta with Latin or German texts. Vaillant may be the composer of the anonymous polymetric rondeau Quiconques veut. He was the author of a treatise on tuning.
all ed. in CMM, liii/1 (1970) and PMFC, xviii–xix (1981–2) unless otherwise stated
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Dame doucement/Doulz amis, rondeau, 3vv |
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Onques Jacob, ballade, 3vv |
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Par maintes foys, virelai, 3vv; facs. in Nádas and Ziino, 170–71; version with added 4th v, ed. in Leclercq, 222–6, and PMFC, xxi (1987); Ger. contrafactum by Oswald von Wolkenstein, ed. in Pelnar |
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Pour ce que je ne say, rondeau, 2vv |
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Tres doulz amis/Ma dame/Cent mille fois, rondeau, 3vv |
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Quiconques veut, rondeau, 3vv; ed. in PMFC, xxii (1989) (anon., possibly by Vaillant) |
L. Delisle: Le cabinet des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque impériale, i (Paris, 1868), 167
E. Langlois, ed.: Recueil d’arts de seconde rhétorique (Paris, 1902)
U. Günther: ‘Der Gebrauch des tempus perfectum diminutum in der Handschrift Chantilly 1047’, AMw, xvii (1960), 277–97, esp. 290
U. Günther: ‘Johannes Vaillant’, Speculum musicae artis: Festgabe für Heinrich Husmann, ed. H. Becker and R. Gerlach (Munich, 1970), 171–85
U. Günther: ‘Quelques remarques sur des feuillets récemment découverts à Grottaferrata’, L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento: Convegno II: Certaldo and Florence 1969 [L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, iii (Certaldo, 1970)], 315–97, esp. 319
I. Adler, ed.: Hebrew Writings Concerning Music, RISM, B/IX/2 (1975), 55ff
U. Günther: ‘Problems of Dating in Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior’, La musica al tempo del Boccaccio e i suoi rapporti con la letteratura: Siena and Certaldo 1975 [L’Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, iv (Certaldo, 1978)], 289–301
U. Günther: ‘Sinnbezüge zwischen Text und Musik in Ars Nova und Ars Subtilior’, Musik und Text in der Mehrstimmigkeit des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts: Wolfenbüttel 1980, 229–68, esp. 254
F. Leclercq: ‘Questions à propos d’un fragment récemment découvert d’une chanson du XIVe siècle: une autre version de “Par maintes fois ai owi” de Johannes Vaillant’, ibid., 197–228
C. Page: ‘Fourteenth-Century Instruments and Tunings: a Treatise by Jean Vaillant? (Berkeley, MS 744)’, GSJ, xxxiii (1980), 17–35
I. Pelnar, ed.: Die mehrstimmigen Lieder Oswalds von Wolkenstein (Tutzing, 1981)
A. Tomasello: Music and Ritual at Papal Avignon 1309–1403 (Ann Arbor, 1983), 250
U. Günther: ‘Polymetric Rondeaux from Machaut to Dufay: some Style-Analytical Observations’, Studies in Musical Sources and Styles: Essays in Honor of Jan LaRue, ed. E.K. Wolf and E.H. Roesner (Madison, WI, 1990), 75–108, esp. 85–90
J. Nádas and A. Ziino, eds.: The Lucca Codex, Ars Nova, i (Lucca, 1990), 40, 71 [facs. with introduction]
URSULA GÜNTHER