Bergerette Explained

A bergerette, or shepherdess' air, is a form of early rustic French song.

The bergerette, developed by Burgundian composers, is a virelai with only one stanza.^{[1] [2] [3]} It is one of the "fixed forms" of early French song and related to the rondeau.^[4] Examples include Josquin's Bergerette savoyene included in Petrucci's Odhecaton (1501).^[5]

Notes and References

1. Henri Louis Chatelain Recherches sur le vers français au XVe siècle: rimes, mètres et ... 1908 p197 "Le virelai n'est plus alors que la bergerette, c'est-à-dire un rondeau, dont le deuxième élément est sur d'autres ... Charles d'Orléans a laissé une pièce qui réunit les caractères du rondeau et de la bergerette"
2. The Chansonnier El Escorial IV.a.24 Real Biblioteca, Martha K. Hanen - 1983 "The Virelai Texts - A virelai text which has but a single stanza is properly termed a bergerette. All the virelais in Escorial IV.a.24 have single-stanza or bergerette texts. Since the music for a virelai is exactly the same as that for a ..."
3. Music Literature Outline 1: Outline 1, Middle Ages and Renaissance p96 Harold Gleason, Warren Becker, Catherine C. Gleason - 1988 "Chanson is a generic term and includes the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai, ballade and bergerette. ... The bergerette, developed by Burgundian composers, is similar to the virelai but with only one stanza.
4. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol.41, American Musicological Society - 1988 "... untexted pieces in Q 18 can be placed, with a certain degree of overlap, in various categories. A number are based on vocal models, relying loosely on the structure of the formes fixes, particularly the rondeau or bergerette."
5. Harmonice musices odhecaton A printer Ottaviano Petrucci, ed Helen Hewitt, Isabel Pope - 1978 "The Odhecaton and Brux 1 show complete bergerette music, ie, musical sections, a and p. Brux 1 also gives words of ... There seems little reason to doubt that the original form of the composition was the 'long' form, or, bergerette."