Of all the surviving manuscript versions of Le Roman de Fauvel, the copy compiled by Chaillou de Pesstain (BN fr. 146), has attracted the most musicological attention due to the interpolated musical pieces in musical notation, which span the gamut of thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century genres and textures. The 169 pieces all have lyrics, 124 in
Latin, 45 in French. The genres cover the liturgical and devotional, sacred and profane, monophonic and polyphonic, chant, old and new music. Some of these pieces are thought to have been composed by
Philippe de Vitry. While these pieces were once thought of as arbitrarily selected repertory for textual "accompaniment", recent scholarship (such as "Fauvel Studies" and Dillon's "Music-Making") has tended to focus on the ingenious intertextual/glossing role(s) played by musical notation – both visual and aural – in augmenting and diversifying the (political) themes of Gervais'
admonitio. Amongst other curious discoveries are the inclusion of numerous "false" chants (Rankin) interspersed between actual liturgical material, perhaps a direct musical play on the deceptive qualities of its equine trickster. Much attention has also been paid to fr. 146's numerous polyphonic
motets, some of which (
In Nova Fert, for example) exhibit red notation of newer mensural notational innovations generally described under the umbrella of
ars nova. Although the text of the
Roman de Fauvel is not particularly well known, the music has been frequently performed and recorded. The question of how the entire work would have been read or staged in the 14th century is the subject of academic debate. Some have suggested that BN fr. 146 could have been intended as a theatrical performance. This hypothesis contradicts the concurrent opinion that the
Roman de Fauvel is mainly an anthology. Modern performance projects, live and recorded, based on the BN 146 manuscript of the "Roman de Fauvel", involving text, music, and at times staging or semi-staging, have been created by the Studio der Fruehen Musik, the Clemencic Consort, and The Boston Camerata, among others. Camerata's version has toured extensively in the U.S. and Europe, and was last seen at the 2011 Boston Early Music Festival.
Discography The first recording of the work was made in 1972 by the
Studio der Frühen Musik (Studio of Early Music) on the EMI Reflexe label, directed by
Thomas Binkley. This recording is currently available as part of a 5-CD box set on the Virgin label. The speaker of the verses uses the original old French, including some now very odd-sounding pronunciations of still familiar French words. It has been suggested that the musical interludes have some, especially for that time, poignantly dissonances and counterpoints, which likely serve to illustrate the mocking nature of the whole story. The musical style of the polyphonies, nonetheless, is characteristic of the period in general. The recording of the Roman de Fauvel by The
Boston Camerata, directed by
Joel Cohen, was made in 1991 for Erato Disques. As of mid-2015, it was still available from Warner Classics. Erato also produced, the same year, a "video book" of the Roman de Fauvel. The video project was shown to audiences at the Louvre Museum, Paris, and at several conferences/colloquia; it was, however, never released commercially. ==See also==