Solage: Fumeux fume par fumée (ca. 1390)

Solage lived in the late 14th century in France, but this is little more than a name we have to put to a number of pieces retained in the Chantilly Codex (a collection of works that exemplify the style called Ars subtilior). Solage is likely a nom-du-plume, a variant spelling of solace meaning “joy”, “entertainment” or “consolation”.

In Fumeux fume par fumée (approximately translated as "The smoker smokes through smoke") Solage offers what seems to be a lampoon of an ostentatious group of poets who named their clique after the poet Jean Fumeux. They are known for their outrageous dress and bohemian lifestyle. Interpreting their name and work is up for debate: is the smoke of the Fumeurs simply the “smoke in the brain” (referring to a mental confusion or “vapours” that might be broken up by the morning drink) or are they referring to the literal smoking of hashish or opium (since tobacco was not known in Europe at that time)?

Solage takes this haziness to the brink in this rondeau, using some of the most outré chromaticism and lowest vocal range of the period. Chris has adapted this piece to highlight its extremes. He has taken the major and minor thirds which run through the harmonies of the piece and re-tuned them, widening and compressing them by the “septimal” interval or seventh partial of the harmonic series. By the end of his microtonal adaptation, after winding through some perception-altering modulations, the refrain is presented in its original low range in the viola and cello. By now, the smoke has clouded our usual grasp of pitches and harmonies we imagined familiar. Where are we, exactly? Or when?

-Austin Wulliman