Remarks on some realistic virelais of the Reina codex

In his edition French Secular Music of the Late Fourteenth Century, Willi Apel labeled a small group of virelais “realistic” due to their expressive modules (descriptive texts, extensive use of onomatopoeias), and suggested a common origin in Northern France or perhaps Flanders. The most comprehensive source for the realistic virelais is, however, italian; the Reina Codex, which is not only the largest surviving multilingual anthology, but also the source containing the largest number of virelais (29). We focus on the realistic virelais copied by Scribe W, and provide detailed analyses and a critical edition of two works, Hé tres doulz roussignol joly / Roussignolet du bois, attributed to borlet in the Chantilly Codex, and the anonymous Rescoes, rescoes/ Rescoes, le feu, unique to the Reina Codex. our research has raised questions about the texts, their traditions, and their implications for performance. The results highlight the problematic status of the realistic virelai as a subgenre. While the intertextual links are evident, our analysis of the music, the variety of structural solutions and stylistic divergences point to a geographically circumscribed production over a relatively long period of time.