Pierre de Molins or Molaines (fl. 1190–1220) was an early trouvère

Trouvère

Trouvère , sometimes spelled trouveur , is the Northern French form of the word trobador . It refers to poet-composers who were roughly contemporary with and influenced by the troubadours but who composed their works in the northern dialects of France...

. He knew either Gace Brulé

Gace Brulé

Gace Brulé , French trouvère, was a native of Champagne.His name is simply a description of his Blazonry. He owned land in Groslière and had dealings with the Knights Templar, and received a gift from the future Louis VIII. These facts are known from documents from the time...

 or the Chastelain de Couci, two of the first-generation trouvères. He was probably a member of a landed family of Épernay

Épernay

Épernay is a commune in the Marne department in northern France. Épernay is located some 130 km north-east of Paris on the main line of the Eastern railway to Strasbourg...

, or possibly of a family resident in and around Noyon

Noyon

Noyon is a commune in the Oise department in northern France.It lies on the Oise Canal, 100 km north of Paris.-History:...

. He is probably the local "Pierre II" referred to in documents from between 1210 and 1224.

Four songs are attributed to Pierre in the Chansonnier du Roi and the Noailles Chansonnier, and all appear in other chansonniers with different attributions. All the melodies are in bar form

Bar form

Bar form is a musical form of the pattern AAB.-Original Use:The term comes from the rigorous terminology of the Meistersinger guilds of the 15th to 18th century who used it to describe their songs and the songs of the predecessors, the minnesingers of the 12th to 14th century...

. Most unusual are the presence of a melodic tritone

Tritone

In classical music from Western culture, the tritone |tone]]) is traditionally defined as a musical interval composed of three whole tones. In a chromatic scale, each whole tone can be further divided into two semitones...

 in two sources for Fine amours et bone esperance and of a sharpened subdominant

Subdominant

In music, the subdominant is the technical name for the fourth tonal degree of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance "below" the tonic as the dominant is above the tonic - in other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdominant. It is also the note immediately...

 in Chanter me fet ce don't je crien morir, both created by the use of accidentals

Accidental (music)

In music, an accidental is a note whose pitch is not a member of a scale or mode indicated by the most recently applied key signature. In musical notation, the symbols used to mark such notes, sharps , flats , and naturals , may also be called accidentals...

. Fine amours served as the model for and anonymous composition of the same name (the second line beginning Me fait), an anonymous piece beginning L'autrier par une matinee, and an anonymous song to the Virgin Mary, Douce dame, vierge Marie. The music of Chanter me fet was used in two different readings of Pour la pucele en chantant me deport by Gautier de Coincy

Gautier de Coincy

Gautier de Coincy was a French abbot, poet and musical arranger, chiefly known for his devotion to the Virgin Mary.While he served as prior of Vic-sur-Aisne he compiled Les Miracles de Nostre-Dame in which he set poems in praise of the Virgin Mary to popular melodies and songs of his...

 and the lyrics were a model for the anonymous Destroiz d'amours et pensis sans deport. The other pieces attributed to Pierre are Quant foillissent li boscage and Tant sai d'amours con cil qui plus l'emprent.

External links

• Text and images of the manuscripts from Pierre de Molins at the University of Ottawa
  University of Ottawa
  The University of Ottawa is a bilingual, research-intensive, non-denominational, international university in Ottawa, Ontario. It is one of the oldest universities in Canada. It was originally established as the College of Bytown in 1848 by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate...
  
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