Rondeau
A French fixed-form song built on a returning refrain
Related
The rondeau is one of the French fixed forms, built on the return of a refrain: the same music and text recur at the opening and again within the piece, separated by short passages of new words.
Monophonic rondeaux exist from the thirteenth century; in the fourteenth and fifteenth they became a major polyphonic chanson form, written by Machaut and Dufay. The full pattern can be written ABaAabAB, capitals marking the refrain. Short and light in tone, it served love poetry and court entertainment.
The rondeau is not the instrumental rondo, though the names share a root: one is a texted fixed-form song, the other an instrumental form codified in the eighteenth century. The marker is that when the refrain returns, its words return too.
Sources
- 法语回旋歌的叠句结构、马肖与迪费的复调写作，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Rondeau"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.