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Quant je sui mis su retour (virelai, a1)Genre: Chanson
Pr. Instrument: Voice
Quant je sui mis is a monophonic song by the fourteenth-century French composer Guillaume de Machaut. It is an example of the genre known as the virelai, one of the fixed formes of the fourteenth century (the others were the ballade and the rondeau). As with the first sixteen of his catalogued virelais, this is a relatively early work of Machaut's, dating from the time of his patronage by John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia.
Quant je sui mis is an unusual and debatable virelai. The fixed forms of the fourteenth century are also literary genres and it is a combination of rhyme, syllable count per line and musical repetition that categorizes a fixed form. In his transcription and catalogue of the works of Machaut of 1956, Leo Schrade cautiously classifies Quant je sui mis as Virelai No. 13, and it is listed in the sections of the sources dealing with virelais. In structure, however, it is more like a ballade, though it is not a very standard ballade either (and Machaut wrote only one monophonic ballade; it is not a genre which was commonly monophonic in the fourteenth century). With medieval works such as this, scholars often have to make difficult and contentious choices.
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