(fl 1149–70). Troubadour. He was possibly the son of a burgher in Alvergne, and may have sought the patronage of the counts of Barcelona, Provence and Toulouse. His famous sirventes, Chantarai d’aquest trobadors (whose melody does not survive), satirizes several contemporaries, including Raimbaut d’Aurenga, Giraut de Bornelh and Bernart de Ventadorn. The song was once thought to have been composed in conjunction with the procession from Bordeaux to Tarazona in 1170 of Aliénor, daughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, to marry Alfonso VIII of Castile, but that has been shown to be improbable. Peire composed about 24 poems, but only two survive with melodies (ed. in van der Werf): a tenso with Bernart de Ventadorn (PC 323.4; F-Pnfr. 844) and a canso, Dejosta·ls breus jorns e·ls loncs sers (PC 323.15; F-Pn fr.20050 and 22543). The latter is through-composed, and in its conservative texture and range it resembles the melodies of Bernart. The tenso is one of the most melismatic of troubadour melodies, and differences between the two extant versions suggest that the melismas are ornamental.
A. Del Monte, ed.: Peire d’Alvernhe (Turin, 1955) [complete edn]
M. de Riquer: Los trovadores: historia, literari y textos (Barcelona, 1975), i, 311–41
H. van der Werf: The Extant Troubadour Melodies (Rochester, NY, 1984), 230*–32* [incl. music edns]
E. Aubrey: The Music of the Troubadours (Bloomington, IN, 1996)
For further bibliography see Troubadours, trouvères.
ELIZABETH AUBREY