Canso (song)

The ''canso'' or ''canson'' or ''canzo'' () was a song style used by the troubadours. It was, by far, the most common genre used, especially by early troubadours, and only in the second half of the 13th century was its dominance challenged by a growing number of poets writing ''coblas esparsas''.

The ''canso'' became, in Old French, the ''grand chant'' and, in Italian, the ''canzone''.

Structure

A ''canso'' usually consists of three parts. The first stanza is the ''exordium'', where the composer explains his purpose. The main body of the song occurs in the following stanzas, and usually draw out a variety of relationships with the ''exordium''; formally, aside from the ''envoi''(''s''), which are not always present, a ''canso'' is made of stanzas all having the same sequence of verses, in the sense that each verse has the same number of metrical syllables. This makes it possible to use the same melody for every stanza. The sequence can be extremely simple, as in ''Can vei la lauzeta mover'', whose stanzas consist of eight lines of eight metrical syllables each, or rather complex, as in Arnaut Daniel's "L'aur'amara",Full tex
here
/ref> whose first stanza is:

(The syllable count here is 3, 4, 2, 6, 2, 1, 5, 4, 1, 3, 4, 4, 2, 4, 6, 4, 6 respectively. The same structure is kept through the six full stanzas of the piece.)

Rhyme scheme

Each stanza in a ''canso'' has the same "internal" rhyme scheme; that is, if, say, the first line rhymes with the third in the first stanza, it will do so in every successive one. What varies is the relationship between rhymes in separate stanzas.

When stanzas follow the same rhyming pattern but the actual sounds differ, they are called ''coblas alternadas'' (lit. "alternated stanzas"). When the last rhyme sound of one ''cobla'' becomes the first of the next they are called ''coblas capcaudadas'' (lit. "head-tailed"). When the last rhyme word of one stanza appears in the first line of the next they are called ''coblas capfinidas'' (lit. "head-finished"). When the rhyming scheme and rhyming sounds are the same each stanza, they are ''coblas unissonans'' (lit. "unison"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds of each stanza are different they are ''coblas singulars'' (lit. "singular"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds do every two stanzas it is called ''coblas doblas'' (lit. "double"). When the rhyming scheme never changes but the sounds do every three stanzas it is called ''coblas ternas''. When the rhymes change position in accordance with an algorithm they are called ''coblas retrogradadas'' (lit. "retrograded").Simon Gaunt and Sarah Kay, edd. (1999), ''The Troubadours: An Introduction'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ).

Envois

The ''canso'' usually ends with one or more ''envois'' (called ''Tornadas'' in Old Occitan). It takes the form of a shortened stanza, containing only a last part of the standard stanza used up to that point; a clear example is the same work by Arnaut Daniel quoted above: the (single) ''envoi'' is:

whose syllable count (4, 4, 2, 4, 6, 4, 6) is the same as the last seven lines of the full stanzas.

Notable examples

* Guilhen de Peiteu
''Pos vezem de novel florir''
possibly the earliest "classic" canso
* Bertran de Born
''Domna, puois de mi noˑus cal''
was popularized by Ezra Pound
* Bernart de Ventadorn
''Can vei la lauzeta mover''
is probably the most famous canso ever written
* Raimbaut of Orange
''Ar resplan la flors enversa''
possibly the clearest example of trobar ric

See also

*Sirventes, a parody of the form

References

{{Western medieval lyric forms

Medieval music genres
Occitan literary genres
Western medieval lyric forms