guillaume de machaut - wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

8/6/2019 Guillaume de Machaut - Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

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Machaut (at right) receiving Nature and three of her

children, from an illuminated Parisian manuscript

of the 1350s

Guillaume de MachautFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Guillaume de Machaut (sometimes spelled Machault)

(c. 1300 – April 1377) was a Medieval French poet and

composer. He is one of the earliest composers on whom

significant biographical information is available.

Machaut was "the last great poet who was also a

composer", in the words of the scholar Daniel Leech-

Wilkinson. Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry

was greatly admired and imitated by other poets,

including Geoffrey Chaucer.

Machaut composed in a wide range of styles and forms.

He is a part of the musical movement known as the ars

nova.

Machaut helped develop the motet and secular song

forms (particularly the lai and the formes fixes: rondeau,

irelai and ballade). Machaut wrote the Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest known complete setting of the

Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer.

Contents

1 Life

2 Poetry2.1 Puis Qu'en Oubli

3 Principal works of Guillaume de Machaut4 Antisemitism5 Music

5.1 Secular music5.2 Sacred music

6 Recordings7 See also8 Notes9 References and further reading10 External links

Life

Machaut was born c. 1300 and educated in the region around Rheims. Though his surname most likely

derives from the nearby town of Machault, 30 km to the east of Rheims in the Ardennes region, most scholar

believe his birthplace was in fact Rheims. He was employed as secretary to John I, Count of Luxemburg and

King of Bohemia, from 1323 to 1346; in addition he became a canon (1337). Most likely he accompanied



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King John on his various trips, many of them military expeditions, around Europe (including Prague). He wa

named as the canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332 and Rheims in 1337. By 1340 Machaut was living in

Rheims, having relinquished his other canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII. In 1346, King John

was killed fighting at the Battle of Crécy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in demand, entered the

service of various other aristocrats and rulers including King John's daughter Bonne (who died of the Black

Death in 1349), her sons Jean de Berry and Charles (later Charles V), Duke of Normandy, and others such as

Charles II of Navarre.[1]

Machaut survived the Black Death which devastated Europe, and spent his later years living in Rheims

composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. His poem Le voir dit (probably

1361-1365) purports to recount a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl, Péronne d'Armentières, although the

accuracy of the work as autobiography is contested.[citation needed ] When he died in 1377, other composers

such as François Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his death.

Poetry

Guillaume de Machaut's lyric output comprises around 400 poems, including

235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais, 24 lais, 10 complaintes, and 7 chansonsroyales, and Machaut did much to perfect and codify these fixed forms. Some of

his lyric output is inserted in his narrative poems or "dits", such as Le remède de

ortune (The Cure of Ill Fortune) which includes one of each genre of lyric

poetry, and Le voir dit (A True Story), but most are included in a separate,

unordered section entitled Les loanges des dames. That the majority of his lyrics

are not set to music (in manuscripts, music and non-music sections are separate)

suggests that he normally wrote the text before setting some to music. Other

than his Latin motets of a religious nature and some poems invoking the horrors

of war and captivity, the vast majority of Machaut's lyric poems partake of the

conventions of courtly love and involve statements of service to a lady and thepoet's pleasure and pains. In technical terms, Machaut was a master of elaborate

rhyme schemes, and this concern makes him a precursor to the Grands

rhétoriqueurs of the 15th century.

Guillaume de Machaut's narrative output is dominated by the "dit" (literally

"spoken", i.e. a poem not meant to be sung). These first-person narrative poems

(all but one are written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, like the romance, or

"roman" of the same period) follow many of the conventions of the Roman de

la rose, including the use of allegorical dreams (songes), allegorical characters,

and the situation of the narrator-lover attempting to return toward or satisfy his lady. Machaut is alsoresponsible for a poetic chronicle of chivalric deeds (the Prise d'Alexandrie) and for poetic works of

consolation and moral philosophy. His unusual self-reflective usage of himself (as his lyrical persona) as the

narrator of his dits gleans some personal philosophical insights as well.

At the end of his life, Machaut wrote a poetic treatise on his craft (his Prologue). This reflects on his

conception of the organization of poetry into set genres and rhyme schemes, and the ordering of these genres

into distinct sections of manuscripts. This pre-occupation in ordering his oeuvre is reflected in an index to MS

A entitled "Vesci l'ordenance que G. de Machau wet qu'il ait en son livre" (Here is the order that G. de

Machaut wants his book to have).[2]



Machaut's poetry had a direct effect on the works of Eustache Deschamps, Jean Froissart, Christine de Pizan

René of Anjou and Geoffrey Chaucer, among many others. Puis Qu'en Oubli is his 18th Rondeau.

Puis Qu'en Oubli

Puis qu'en oubli sui de vous, dous amis.

Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.

Mar vi le jour que m'amour en vous mis.


Mais ce tenray que je vous ay promis.

C'est que ja mais n'aray nul autre amant.


Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.

Principal works of Guillaume de Machaut

Le remède de fortune (The Cure of Ill Fortune) (c. 1340s, before 1357) – The narrator is asked byhis lady if the poem she has found is by him; the narrator flees from her and comes to a gardenwhere "Hope" consoles him and teaches him how to be a good lover; he returns to his lady.

Jugement du roy de Behainge (Judgement of the King of Bohemia) (before 1346) – The narratorhears a debate between a lady (whose lover is dead) and a knight (betrayed by his lady); in order toproclaim one or the other the most unhappy, the narrator seeks out the advice of the King of Bohemia who consults allegories, and the unhappy knight is declared the winner.

Dit du Lyon (Story of the Lion) (1342) – The narrator comes to a magical island and a lion guideshim to a beautiful lady; an old knight comes to the narrator and reveals the meaning of what he seeand gives him advice for being a better lover.

Dit de l'Alérion aka Dit des quatre oiseaux (Story of the 4 Birds) (before 1349) – A symbolic tale olove: the narrator raises four different birds, but each one flees him; one day the second (andpreferred) bird comes back to him.

Jugement du roy de Navarre (Judgement of the King of Navarre) (1349) – Following up on the Jugement du roy de Behainge, a lady blames the narrator for awarding the prize to the knight: theKing of Navarre is consulted and condemns the poet.

Confort d'ami (1357) - Dedicated to Charles II of Navarre (who was a prisoner in France), thispoetic consolation gives biblical and classical examples (exempla) of fortitude.

Dit de la fontaine amoureuse aka Livre de Morpheus (Story of the Amorous Fountain) (1361) –The narrator meets a hopeless lover who must separate from his lady; the two men come to amagical fountain and fall asleep, and in a dream the lady consoles her lover.

Le voir dit (A True Story) (c. 1362-5) – Often seen as Machaut's masterpiece, this poem is an earlyexample of meta-fiction and tells of the sadness and separation of the narrator, from his lady and ofthe false rumors that are spread about him. The narrative is stuffed with prose letters and lyric poemthat the narrator claims were in truth exchanged by the unhappy lovers and put in the book at thebehest of his lady. The work however is highly satirical and mocks the conventional paradigm of medieval courtly literature by presenting himself, an old, ill, impotent poet as the lover of a young



and beautiful maiden, who falls in love with him from his reputation as a poet alone. Though thework is called a voir dit or true story, Machaut includes many inconsistencies which force the readeto question the truthfulness of his story.Prologue (c. 1372) – written at the end of his life as a preface to his collected works, this allegorydescribes Machaut's principles of poetry, music and rhetoric, as imparted to him by Nature andLove.Prise d'Alexandrie (The Capture of Alexandria) (after 1369) – poetic retelling of the exploits of Peter of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and of Cyprus.

Antisemitism

In René Girard's book The Scapegoat Guillaume de Machaut's work is shown to instigate violence against

Jews - as he accuses them of poisoning wells and causing the black plague which ravaged France in 1349.

Girard uses Guillaume's work to demonstrate the stereotypes of the scapegoat. (Girard R., 1986)

Music

As a composer of the 14th century, Machaut's secular song output includes monophonic lais and virelais,which continue, in updated forms, some of the tradition of the troubadours. He also worked in the polyphonic

forms of the ballade and rondeau forms and wrote the first complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass whic

can be attributed to a single composer. Machaut fused together contemporary styles and techniques to create a

series of masterworks that Classicfm Magazine says stands at the summit of 14th century music.[3]

Secular music

The lyrics of Machaut's works almost always dealt with courtly love. A few works exist to commemorate a

particular event, such as M18, "Bone Pastor/Bone Pastor/Bone Pastor." Machaut mostly composed in five

enres: the lai, the virelai, the motet, the ballade, and the rondeau. In these genres, Machaut retained the basicformes fixees, but often utilized creative text setting and cadences. For example, most rondeaux phrases end

with a long melisma on the penultimate syllable. However, a few of Machaut's rondeaux, such as R18 "Puis

qu'en oubli", are mostly syllabic in treatment. Machaut's motets often contain sacred texts in the tenor, such a

in M12 "Corde mesto cantando/Helas! pour quoy virent/Libera me." The top two voices in these three-part

compositions, in contrast, sing secular French texts, creating interesting concordances between the sacred and

secular. In his other genres, though, he does not utilize sacred texts.

Sacred music

Machaut's cyclic setting of the Mass, his Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady), was probably composefor Rheims Cathedral in the early 1360s. While not the first cyclic mass – the Tournai Mass is earlier – it was

the first by a single composer and conceived as a unit. Machaut probably was familiar with the Tournai Mass

since the Messe de Nostre Dame shares many stylistic features with it, including textless interludes.

Whether or not Machaut's mass is indeed cyclic is contested; after lengthy debate musicologists are still deepl

divided. However, there is a consensus that this mass is at best a forerunner to the later 15th-century cyclic

masses by the likes of Josquin des Prez. Machaut's mass differs from these in the following ways: (1) he does

not hold a tonal centre throughout the entire work, as the mass uses two distinct modes (one for the Kyrie,

Gloria and Credo, another for Sanctus, Agnus and Ita missa est); (2) there is no extended melodic theme that



clearly runs through all the movements, and the mass does not use the parody technique; (3) there is

considerable evidence that this mass was not composed in one creative motion. That the movements may hav

been placed together does not mean they were conceived so.[4]

Nevertheless, the mass can be said to be stylistically consistent, and certainly the chosen chants are all

celebrations of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Also adding weight to the claim that the mass is cyclic is the

possibility that the piece was written or assembled for performance at a specific celebration. The possibility

that it was for the coronation of Charles V, which was once widely accepted, is thought unlikely in modern

scholarship. The composer's intention that the piece be performed as one entire mass setting makes Le Messe

de Nostre Dame generally considered a cyclic composition.

Recordings

1987 - Machaut: The Mirror of Narcissus. Gothic Voices. Hyperion CDA66087.1989 - Machaut: Messe de Notre Dame. The Hilliard Ensemble1994 - Remede de Fortune. Ensemble Project Ars Nova. New Albion Records.1997 - Dreams in the Pleasure Garden: Machaut Chansons. Orlando Consort. Deutsche

Grammophon DG Archiv 477 6731.1997 - Kyrie I, II, and III, on Kronos Quartet, Early Music (Lachrymae Antiquae).2002 - "Les motets", Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel, Zig-Zag Territoires 021002.2 (2CDs)2004 - Machaut: Motets. The Hilliard Ensemble2004 – Zodiac. Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior in the Low Countries and Europe. Capilla Flamenca.Eufoda 1360. Contains recordings of "Riches d'amour et mendians d'amie" and "Quant je suis misau retour" by Guillaume de Machaut.2004 - Ma fin est mon commencement , by Louis Thiry (organ). Hortus records.2009 - En un gardin. Les quatre saisons de l'Ars Nova. Manuscrits de Stavelot, Mons, Utrecht,

Leiden. Capilla Flamenca. MEW 0852. Contains a recording of Se vous n'estes by Guillaume de

Machaut.2009 - "Ballades", Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel, AEON AECD 0982.2010 - Art of Love: Music of Machaut , Robert Sadin, Edge Records, with Mark Feldman, HassanHakmoun, John Ellis, Lionel Loueke, Brad Mehldau, Milton Nascimento.2010 - "Messe Notre-Dame", (with Philippe de Vitry, Robertsbridge Codex, Pierre de Bruges,Gilles d'Orléans, Bernard de Cluny), Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel, AEON AECD 109

See also

List of compositions by Guillaume de Machaut

Notes

1. ^ Wimsatt & Kibler 1988. p 3-4

2. ^ Earp 1989. p 461

3. ^ Classicfm Magazine, February 2010, page 22.

4. ^ Keitel 1982.

References and further reading



Arlt, Wulf. "Guillaume de Machaut" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed.Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980). ISBN 1-56159-174-2Earp, Lawrence. Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research (New York: Garland Publishing,1995).Earp, Lawrence. 'Machaut's Role in the Production of Manuscripts of His Works', JAMS , Vol. 42,1989. pp. 461–503.Leach, Elizabeth Eva (ed.). Machaut's Music: New Interpretations (Boydell Press, 2003). ISBN1843830167; ISBN 9781843830160

Leach, Elizabeth Eva. Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician (Cornell University Pres2011). ISBN: 9780801449338Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel (ed.). La Messe de Nostre Dame (Oxford University Press, 1990).Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel. Machaut's Mass: An introduction (Oxford University Press, 1992).Hasenohr and Zinc (eds.). Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le Moyen Age in Collection: La

Pochothèque (Paris: Fayard, 1992).Hoppin, Richard H. Medieval Music (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1978). ISBN 0-393-090906Gleason and Becker. Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, ).Keitel, Elizabeth. 'The so-called cyclic mass of Guillame De Machaut: new evidence for an olddebate', The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 68, 1982. pp. 307–323.Wimsatt and Kibler (eds.). Machaut: Le Jugement du roy de Behaingne and Remede de Fortune(University of Georgia Press, 1988)."The Works of Guillaume de Machaut"(http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/MMDB/composer/COM003.htm) . La Trobe University Library.2003-06-02. http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/MMDB/composer/COM003.htm. Retrieved 2008-02-0"Author: Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377)" (http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/m/machaut/) . ThLied and Art Song Texts Page. http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/m/machaut/. Retrieved 2008-02-08

External links

Guillaume de Machaut FAQ and discography(http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/composers/machaut.html)Free scores by Guillaume de Machaut in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)Free access to high-resolution images of manuscripts (http://www.diamm.ac.uk/) containing worksby Machaut from Digital Image Archive of Medieval MusicFree scores (http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Machaut.php) by Guillaume de Machautin the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)Free scores by Guillame de Machaut at the International Music Score Library ProjectListen to free recordings of songs

(http://www.acc.umu.se/~akadkor/early/IID_Machaut_Guillaume_de.html) from (UmeåAkademiska Kör (http://www.acc.umu.se/~akadkor/indexENG.html) ).Full-colour images of the Ferrell-Vogüé MS, a major collection of the poetry and music of Machauare available for free for anyone to view at The Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music(http://www.diamm.ac.uk) .

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_de_Machaut"Categories: 1377 deaths | Medieval composers | French composers | Medieval poets | French poets | Crusadeliterature | Year of birth uncertain

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