(fl c1183–c1205). Provençal troubadour. The ironic wit, fantasy and whimsical boastfulness of his verse probably contributed to the rapid spread of legendary stories concerning his life. A restless wanderer, he served Raimon V of Toulouse, Raimon Gaufridi Barral, Viscount of Marseilles, Alfonso II of Aragon, Alfonso VIII of Castile and Boniface I of Montferrat. He visited Hungary as a follower of Constance of Aragon and lived in Genoa and Pisa. Some of his poems touch on political quarrels of the time. He was a supporter of Richard the Lionheart, and supposedly accompanied him as far as Cyprus on the Third Crusade. The tale of his marriage to a Greek woman whom he thought to be the granddaughter of the Emperor of Constantinople is now regarded as fictitious.
Vidal’s poems reveal technical ease and power as well as an original approach to traditional themes. Of approximately 50 poems that are attributable to him, 12 survive with music. One anonymous work, Pos vezem, may also be his. Structural patterns employed by Vidal are to be found in some 17 other medieval lyrics that survive without music, and it is possible (though conjectural) that a few of these employed Vidal’s melodies.
Anc no mori per amor, Be·m pac d’ivern and Quant hom survive with music in more than two sources. The variants of Anc no mori and Be·m pac affect significant details of modal structure and form, while two unrelated melodies are extant for Cant hom. The poems set to music are primarily isosyllabic (either decasyllabic, octosyllabic or heptasyllabic), the opening section of the strophe is normally in an abba pattern and the closing section usually has paired c and d rhymes. The melodies generally develop freely over the span of a 9th or 10th, but Be·m pac d’ivern, one of the more florid works, attains the extraordinary compass of an octave and a 7th. A wide variety of modal structures is used. More often than not, the final does not constitute a pervasive tonal centre, and in two works it is not used cadentially before the last line. Bar form is used in Baros, de mon dan covit, Nulhs hom no·s pot and Pos vezem, while the same pair of phrases ends each of the two halves of Tart mi veiran. Repeated motifs are occasionally to be found within individual phrases, but there is little other evidence of symmetrical construction.
Edition:Der musikalische Nachlass der Troubadours, ed. F. Gennrich, SMM, iii, iv, xv (1958–65)Las cançons dels trobadors, ed. I. Fernandez de la Cuesta and R. Lafont (Toulouse, 1979)The Extant Troubadour Melodies, ed. H. van der Werf and G. Bond (Rochester, NY, 1984)
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Anc no mori per amor ni per al, PC 364.4 |
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Baros, de mon dan covit, PC 364.7 |
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Be·m pac d’ivern e d’estiu, PC 364.11 (written c1182–5) |
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Cant hom es en autrui poder, PC 364.39 |
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Jes per temps fer e brau, PC 364.24 |
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Neus ni glatz ni plueyas ni fanh, PC 364.30 |
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Nulhs hom no·s pot d’amor gandir, PC 364.31 |
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Pos tornatz sui en Proensa, PC 364.37 (written c1189) |
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Quant hom honratz torna en gran paubreira, PC 364.40 |
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Si co·l paubre, can jatz el ric ostal, PC 364.36 |
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S’ieu fos en cort que hom tengues drechura, PC 364.42 |
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Tart mi veiran mei amic en Tolzan, PC 364.49 |
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Pos vezem que l’iverns s’irais, PC 461.197 (anon., possibly by Vidal) |
J. Anglade: Les poésies de Peire Vidal (Paris, 1913, 2/1923/R)
H. Anglès: La música a Catalunya fins al segle XIII (Barcelona, 1935/R)
W. Bittinger: Studien zur musikalischen Textkritik des mittelalterlichen Liedes (Würzburg,1953)
A.S. Avalle, ed.: Peire Vidal: Poesie (Milan, 1960)
E. Hoepffner: Le troubadour Peire Vidal, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1961)
Z. Falvy: Mediterranean Culture and Troubadour Music (Budapest, 1986)
E. Aubrey: The Music of the Troubadours (Bloomington, IN, 1996)
For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.
THEODORE KARP