Guillaume de Machaut (jan 1, 1300 – jan 1, 1377)

Description:

a medieval French poet and composer. Machaut helped develop the motet and secular song forms (particularly the lai and the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai 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. Some of his best-known rondeaus are "Ma fin est mon commencement" and "Rose, liz, printemps, verdure".

Machaut: Poet and Musician
1. Machaut is considered the greatest poet-composer of the Ars nova.
a. He follows in the trouvère tradition.
b. He wrote in a variety of genres.
2. Analysis of isorhythmic motet: Felix virgo/Inviolata/AD TE SUSPIRAMUS

Musica ficta
1. The chromaticism found in Machaut’s motet is called musica ficta.
2. Ficta was usually added orally, not notated.
3. Analysis of Felix virgo/Inviolata/AD TE SUSPIRAMUS demonstrates musica ficta in
the music of Machaut.

Machaut and the Art of Courtly Song
1.Machaut enjoyed a widespread reputation as a skilled poet.
a. He traveled widely.
b. His fame grew throughout his long life.
c. He was probably paid by patrons honored in his works.
2. Machaut’s works include long narrative poems that sometimes included inserted
musical interpolations.
a. These works, such as Le Remede de Fortune, continue traditions seen in the
troubadour and trouvère repertories.

Machaut’s La Messe de Nostre Dame
1. Machaut’s best known work, La Messe de Nostre Dame, is uncharacteristic.
a. This is a complete setting of the Mass Ordinary—the earliest to survive.
2. Special Mass collections, Votive Masses, were used in memorial chapels. These also
contributed to the interest in setting the Mass Ordinary polyphonically.
3. Machaut’s Messe de Nostre Dame is a tour de force of Ars nova aesthetics.

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