Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut

Source: Centro Studi Europeo

Born circa 1300 probably in Reims, France, Guillaume de Machaut (also Machau or Machault) arrived to a world that had recently been through several Crusades with Christians eventually expelled from the Holy Land come Muslim victories in Tripoli in 1289 and Acre in 1291. In 1299 Osman I formed what would become the Ottoman Empire to carve away the Byzantine Empire which would see its final days in the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Machaut was a child when Clement V moved the seat of the papacy from Rome to Avignon, France, in 1309, then abolished the Order of the Knights Templar in 1312, burning its grand master, Jacques de Molay, at the stake in 1314. The Church then sent its first missionary of good news to India in 1321, the Dominican monk, Jordanus. It was also during Machaut's lifetime that the Black Death (bubonic plague) took 75 to 200 million lives along trade routes of Eurasia between 1346 and 1353.

As for music, Machaut is a fundamental example of ars nova period or, French music during the 14th century. During his youth the Swiss Codex Manesse was compiled from circa 1304 to 1334, an illuminated manuscript of song and poetry of the Middle High German period featuring numerous talents of the age. Meanwhile in France, Machaut was a composer of both sacred music and secular poetry, his years of major musical activity estimated from 1340 to 1370. He had begun serving as secretary to King John I of Bohemia as a young man in 1323, a position he retained until John's death at the Battle of Crecy in 1346, after which he entered the service of various other royals, meanwhile to survive the Black Death. His secular repertoire included rearrangements of traditional troubadour melodies, troubadours having been plying their craft for a couple centuries by then. Machaut thus applied himself to poems of courtly love and narrative ballades, 46 of the latter. He also addressed a broad range of other musical and poetic forms from lais (19 of them) to virilais (33) to the popular rondeau (22).

Numerous of Machaut's poems are referred to as dits ("spoken"), that is, not intended for setting to melody as song. More extensive works anthologizing a series of works as they shift from poetic to lyrical are 'The Remede de Fortune' (catalogued as RF in the order they were composed) and 'Le Livre du Voir Dit'. 'Fortune's Remedy' was written circa 1340-1342. Beginning with the lai which was old-fashioned at the time, Machaut analogizes the art of love with art of writing as he progresses through forms to the rondeau. His later 'The Book of True Poetry' written circa 1362-1365 is similar in theme, excepting that the hope of youth changes to the hopelessness of no longer being young, the object of his love thus unobtainable.

Rather than attempting to date compositions below, they are stacked per Leo Schrade's 'Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century' edited 1956-58. Shrade's numbering scheme as represented at Wikipedia does not reflect chronology (excepting RF). Though Machaut took pains to anthologize his works of which many yet exist, dates aren't so readily supplied. Wikipedia has him writing the sacred 'Bone pastor' ('Good Shepard' Motet 18) as early as c 1324, and he was yet writing into the seventies with the wide range of his works in between defiant to specific dating. Fortunate are we that his titles are not so elusive, generally incipits or variants thereat with Machaut.

'De Fortune me doi pleindre et loer'   Ballade 23   Guillaume de Machaut

'Of Fortune I Both Complain and Praise'   c 1350

Performed by the Ensemble Musica Nova

'Puis qu'en oubli'   Rondeau 18   Guillaume de Machaut

'Since I Am Forgotten'

Performed by the Oxford Camerata

'Douce Dame Jolie'   Virelai 4   Guillaume de Machaut

'Sweet Lady Fair'    c prior to 1346

Performed by Annwn  2009

'Quant je sui mis au retour'   Virelai 13   Guillaume de Machaut

'When I Have Returned'

Voice w harp by Anon

'Je vivroie liement'   Virelai 21   Guillaume de Machaut

'I Should Lead a Happy Life'

Performed by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois

'Je vivroie liement' Virelai 21 & 'Liement me deport' Virelai 27   Guillaume de Machaut

'I Should Lead a Happy Life'   'Smile Though Your Heart Ache'

Performed by Falsobordone

Machaut had assumed his first position as a canon in the Church in 1330. Sacred music by Machaut included motets, the earliest form of polyphony developed by Léonin at Notre Dame in the latter 12th century. However, although Machaut's motets are for three and four independent voices like Perotin's (successor to Leonin), they are no longer only sacred, but address love secular as well. He likely completed his choral masterwork, 'Messe de Nostre Dame', sometime between 1360 and 1365. The 'Messe de Nostre Dame' was the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer. Thus to mention lends opportunity to regard that of essence to music in Europe beyond itinerate or court musicians was the Catholic Mass, which central rite and concept were presentation of the Eucharist. The music of the Church was considerably more the music of the people than chansons of romantic love performed in royal courts. Were you born in Europe 800 years ago you might well be in church now, along with pretty much the rest of the town that didn't get invited to musical occasions among the propertied nobility. You would also belong to either of two groups, one that heard a lot of Latin at church, the other that could read and write in Latin, the latter putting high into education since the vast majority of the population was illiterate in Middle French as well. Mass (Latin: "missa") was observed by the Eastern Orthodox Church as well. The observance of Mass w plainchant had been a practice of the Church from the begin, come to involve reading from scripture followed by congregational response. The liturgy of the Mass is further divided into the Ordinary of texts unchanging and the Proper of texts that alter. The complete Mass of the Ordinary has six sections addressed by Machaut: the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Ite Missa Est (dismissal).

'Bone pastor' ('Good Shepard')   Motet 18   Guillaume de Machaut   c 1324

Performed by the Ensemble Musica Nova

'Messe de Nostre Dame' ('Mass of Our Lady')   Guillaume de Machaut   c 1364 or earlier

Performed by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois

By the time Machaut died in 1377 he had established himself as the most significant French composer of the century, and joined Chaucer and Petrarch, his contemporaries, in regard as a poet.

Pierre Hamon w Marc Mauillon (Remede de Fortune) Audio

The Orlando Consort (the gentle physician)

The Orlando Consort (Songs from Le Voir Dit)

The Oxford Camerata (Messe de Nostre Dame / Songs from Le Voir Dit) Audio