Focusing on a neglected but important repertory of polyphonic songs from mid-sixteenth-century France, this unique project puts old books before a diverse audience of modern scholars and musicians in ways that will prompt renewed understanding of these cultural artifacts and their meanings. It is dedicated to sixteen sets of books expertly crafted by the Parisian printer Nicholas Du Chemin between 1549 and 1568. In them, we can trace changing literary tastes, musical fashions, and above all the impact of the relatively new medium of printing on musical culture of the day.
Here readers will find facsimiles of all sixteen sets of books, plus modern transcriptions, scholarly commentaries, and tools for research. There are also links to related projects sponsored by the CESR, including a broader database of the sixteenth-century chanson repertory, a project devoted to the reconstruction of pieces with missing voice parts, and another devoted to the study and editing of the literary texts of the chansons themselves. All of this has been assembled under a number of headings designed to encourage researchers, students, and performers to explore the rich world of the chanson at mid century. We invite readers to make productive use of these resources, and to tell us about what you have learned from them.
All of this has been made possible through the generous support of the CNRS, the CESR of the UFR de Tours, the National Endowment for the Humanities Office of Digital Humanities, and Haverford College.
Richard Freedman (Haverford College) and Philippe Vendrix (CESR).
Rights of Use and Reproduction
This project includes facsimiles, modern editions, and commentaries freely distributed for private use by readers and researchers. The copyright of the libraries which have authorized the reproduction of the original sources are protected under the terms of use, as are the rights of the organizations which financed and sustained the work of the scholars and students who made the modern editions, commentaries, and digital interface that brings them together. The technical labor undertaken by the project participants is considered a "work" (digitization, treatment of images, bibliographical description, construction of databases, programming, etc). All further reproduction or commercial use of these materials, in performance, print, or electronic form, is subject to prior authorization of the project administration and director.
The Chansons of Nicholas Du Chemin (1549-1568) is made available according to the terms of the Creative Commons license Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 Unported
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
French version: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.fr
