Adam de la Halle

Adam de la Halle (1245–50 – 1285–8/after 1306) was a French poet-composer trouvère.^[1] Among the few medieval composers to write both monophonic and polyphonic music, in this respect he has been considered both a conservative and progressive composer, resulting in a complex legacy: he cultivated admired representatives of older trouvère genres, but also experimented with newer dramatic works.^[2] Adam represented the final generation of the trouvère tradition and "has long been regarded as one of the most important musical and literary figures of thirteenth-century Europe".^[3]

Adam's literary and musical works include chansons and jeux-partis (poetic debates) in the style of the trouvères; polyphonic rondel and motets in the style of early liturgical polyphony; and a musical play, Jeu de Robin et Marion (c. 1282–83), which is considered the earliest surviving secular French play with music. He was a member of the Confrérie des jongleurs et bourgeois d'Arras, a fraternity of jongleurs.