Jacob Senleches - Fuions de ci (22/25) (ballade in manneristic style)

Jacob Senleches (fl. 1382/1383 - 1395) (also Jacob Senlechos and Jacopinus Selesses) was a Franco-Flemish composer and harpist of the late Middle Ages. He composed in a style commonly known as the ars subtilior.

Fuions de ci (ballade in manneristic style)
Rogers Covey-Crump, Mark Padmore and Paul Hillier

It has been suggested that Jacob Senleches has been born in St. Luc near Evreux, France (U. Günther) or in Senleches (or Sanlesches) in Cambrai, today France (A. Tomasello). In 1382 Senleches seems to have been present at the court of Eleanor of Castile (d. September 1382), possibly in her service. In Fuions de ci he laments Eleanor's death and resolves to seek his fortune either "en Aragon, en France ou en Bretaingne".

Afterwards he is found in service of Pedro de Luna, Cardinal of Aragon (later Antipope Benedict XIII, 1394-1423), as a harpist. There is a treasury document assigning payments to one "Jaquemin de Sanleches, juglar de harpe" from the royal household in Navarra dated August 21, 1383. The payment is made so that Jacquemin may return to "his master", Pedro de Luna.

A supplication to Benedict XIII in 1395 records Jacob de Selesses asking for the benefice attached to a parish church in the diocese of Cambrai.

Despite the small number of transmitted compositions Jacob de Senleches is counted among the central personalities of Ars subtilior. He developed many rhythmic and notational innovations.

The texts deal mainly with himself and his career.

Ars subtilior (more subtle art) is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered around Paris, Avignon in southern France, also in northern Spain at the end of the fourteenth century. The style also is found in the French Cypriot repertory. Often the term is used in contrast with ars nova, which applies to the musical style of the preceding period from about 1310 to about 1370; though some scholars prefer to consider the ars subtilior a subcategory of the earlier style. Primary sources for the ars subtilior are the Chantilly Codex and the Modena Codex.

As often seen at the end of any musical era, the end of the medieval era is marked by a highly manneristic style known as Ars subtilior. In some ways, this was an attempt to meld the French and Italian styles. This music was highly stylized, with a rhythmic complexity that was not matched until the 20th century. In fact, not only was the rhythmic complexity of this repertoire largely unmatched for five and a half centuries, with extreme syncopations, mensural trickery, and even examples of augenmusik (such as a chanson by Baude Cordier written out in manuscript in the shape of a heart), but also its melodic material was quite complex as well, particularly in its interaction with the rhythmic structures. Already discussed under Ars Nova has been the practice of isorhythm, which continued to develop through late-century and in fact did not achieve its highest degree of sophistication until early in the 15th century. Instead of using isorhythmic techniques in one or two voices, or trading them among voices, some works came to feature a pervading isorhythmic texture which rivals the integral serialism of the 20th century in its systematic ordering of rhythmic and tonal elements. The term "mannerism" was applied by later scholars, as it often is, in response to an impression of sophistication being practised for its own sake, a malady which some authors have felt infected the Ars subtilior.

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