- Composer:
Frauenlob, (Heinrich von Meissen) - Period: Medieval (1-1449)
Review
This jaunty triple meter, somewhat mellismatic ballad by Frauenlob (Heinrich von Meissen) written in Aeolian (natural minor key) mode, contains some good advice and wise observances about courting: ""Ez waent ein narrenwise, spricht im ein wib güetliche zuo, der minnen druo der si zehant uf siner wise gruo, der ist ein diet. (If a woman talks friendly to him, a sapient fool thinks that the fruit of his courting is already growing on his green meadow." The verse continues "He is a simpleton. By rights, a woman should nourish herself with courteous words. Woman, if you will seek love, you must avoid the dandies. That is what Love advises you. Avoid the splendid beau who bears presumptuousness in his heart ! If he cunningly persuades you to dance with him, you will be insulted afterwards by his manners. "At the end of each verse, the voice continues to sing after the accompanying instruments have stopped. The voice traces a mellismatic line downward which leads seamlessly into the next verse. This is a wonderful turnaround effect that keeps the melodic line bouyant and continuous.
The second verse advises the male courter about his behavior: "He who bears Love's coat-of-arms (that his manliness experience Love's intoxicating scent) may follow Love ... He should see to it that no false burden cover the board of his shield (this could easily cause an illusion) so that his heart's image be purely reflected in the shield of Love and his shield does not frighten it away. Then Love will become ready to give itself ..."
Like the last verse of many troubador ballads, the third verse of this song extends the meaning and import of the initial verses from the personal to the more universal, poetically expressed: "The unreasonable say that the most illustrious masters of science and literature had lived in former times; no one might brew again the spiced drink of their minds. They are ill-informed. Regard the rain and the wind: they have the same strength today that they had two thousand years ago, for God himself maintains them. Mastery should bow before this example: the spring of high wisdom can never run dry. The more one draws from its stream, the more one obtains. He whom nature benefits draws as much in our day as another has drawn at other times. This is wrought by God's own will. "
This ballad is most often performed in contemporary arrangement with bass voice, flute, shawm, harp, and fiddle. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Troubadours, Trouvères, Minstrels | 1995 |
