Longevity

Abstract In general, songs disappear from the sources fairly quickly. Gregorian chant is the exception here, though just occasionally liturgical polyphony can have a fairly long lifespan. Among songs, an exception is Escobar’s Quedaos adiós, with music that is performed to this day in the Assumption plays at Elche. Monophonic songs tend to have a longer life: T’Andernaken, La belle se siet, and L’homme armé all seem to have lasted through several centuries. Otherwise, there are occasional works that recur in the manuscripts over a long time, among them the fourteenth-century’s most often copied motet, Apollinis eclipsatur. Among the songs of the fifteenth century with long lives, the music of Compere seems to have been particularly successful, partly because he seems to have been the initiator of a musical style that remained in active use for over a century.