However, Professor John Haines of the Faculty of Music and the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto has spent the last few years studying how people have interpreted troubadour songs since they were first written in the late thirteenth century. "We don't know what instruments were used, at what point they would play, the rhythm, the pitches or how long the songs lasted," he says. "What people have had to do is fill in the blanks with the 250 surviving troubadour melodies."
Haines believes that, over the centuries, different influences have played an important role in how these songs have been interpreted. For example, some interpretations focus on Arabic-style melodies while others use lilting, waltz-like rhythms.
His forthcoming book, Eight Centuries of the Troubadours and Trouveres: The Changing Identity of Medieval Music, is funded in part by a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst grant, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institut Français de Washington.
ADDITIONAL CONTACT INFORMATION:
Professor John Haines,
Faculty of Music and the Centre for Medieval Studies,
416-946-8468,
j.haines@utoronto.ca