Background
Guillaume de Machaut was born in the village of Machault, near Reims, France about 1300.
(Western music as we know it today has its roots in the fo...)
Western music as we know it today has its roots in the fourteenth century, and most famously in the pioneering works of Guillaume de Machaut. Why he chose to set his remarkable poetry to music in this way we may never know, but the results continue to hold those who hear it enraptured. Few groups have matched The Orlando Consort - formed in 1988 specifically to explore this repertoire - in capturing and recording the essence of Machaut. This is the group's second volume in their Machaut Edition for Hyperion.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QKYTS58/?tag=2022091-20
(Just when you think you know somebody, some uncharacteris...)
Just when you think you know somebody, some uncharacteristic behavior shows itself and you instantly realize that you have more to learn. Such an enlightening occurrence is bound to happen for listeners to this disc accustomed to hearing the "memorable tunes, regular phrasing, and clear harmony" of Machaut's most commonly performed works. Here, the four-member Orlando Consort--alto, two tenors, and baritone--happily and with masterful ease introduce us to the "other" Machaut, one of irregular phrases, lively syncopated rhythms, and long flowing melodies that interact contrapuntally with two or three other vocal lines. The melodic structure often consists of cleverly intertwined strings of suspensions followed by quick resolutions, giving a jumpy impetus to many lengthy passages and entire songs. Among these 14 secular songs are many beautiful poetic texts and some notable melodies, but, interestingly, Machaut didn't attempt to fit music with textual meaning. For us, it remains just to listen--and perhaps to read the words separately--and we are rewarded with some of the 14th century's most sensuous, intriguing, and exotic music. --David Vernier
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(The second Gothic Voices recording was something of a mil...)
The second Gothic Voices recording was something of a milestone: the first recording of 14-century music performed by voices alone. The absence of instruments permits very precise tuning (no small matter in this repertory) and doesn't obscure Machaut's poetry (which was admired by no less than Geoffrey Chaucer). Belying its scholarly-but-dull reputation, Gothic Voices sings with plenty of energy and rhythmic snap; the monophonic songs, performed by a single unaccompanied voice, come off particularly well. The best example of this disc's achievement is the famous "Douce dame jolie," which has been done as everything from a catchy little ditty to a fife-and-drum march: Margaret Philpot performs it as what it is--the forlorn plea of a spurned lover. --Matthew Westphal
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000002ZGV/?tag=2022091-20
(An all-vocal recording of the beautiful ballades and mote...)
An all-vocal recording of the beautiful ballades and motets of Guillaume de Machaut, one of the most prolific poets and composers of fourtheenth-century France. Also includes pieces by P. des Molins and the posthumous homage to Machaut by F. Andrieu.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00027P9OI/?tag=2022091-20
Guillaume de Machaut was born in the village of Machault, near Reims, France about 1300.
Machaut was educated in the region around Reims.
Machaut became a cleric, and in 1323 he joined the household of King John of Bohemia as a secretary. John was the son of one German emperor and the father of another; his ancestral castle was Luxembourg. He was also the brother-in-law of one French king and later became the father-in-law of another, and his closest associations were with the French court. One of the most traveled noblemen of Europe and involved in numerous military campaigns, John took his secretary with him to Bohemia, Prussia, Poland, Lithuania, and Italy. Later John settled Machaut at Reims with a canonicate. There Machaut lived from about 1340 on, quietly and peacefully, except for frequent trips to Paris and hunting expeditions; he was joined by his brother in 1355 and by his student, the poet Eustache Deschamps, who may have been his nephew.
Machaut always kept in close touch with the royal family, and his last patron was Jean de France, Duke of Berry, the grandson of King John and brother of King Charles V of France. The Duke of Berry was one of the greatest art patrons of all time. The most beautiful of the five manuscripts that contain all Machaut's works was written for the duke under Machaut's personal supervision. Because of this "complete edition, " Machaut's output reaches us fully and is the most voluminous of any composer before the 15th century.
In 1374 Machaut's brother died, and in April 1377 Guillaume followed him.
Two poems written by Deschamps in May commemorate his death; shortly thereafter they were set to music by a composer of the younger generation, Andrieu, and they constitute the earliest such "complaint" about a poet or composer.
Machaut's works can be divided into four categories.
The first consists of larger poetic works: seven historical poems (dits); Le Remède de fortune, in part a textbook of poetry; Le Veoir dit (1362 - 1365), the story of his last love; La Prise d'Alexandrie (ca. 1370), chronicling the sack of Alexandria by the king of Cyprus in 1365; and seven others. Several of these works contain poems set to music.
The second group comprises his shorter poems: La Louange des dames, some 270 poems in praise of women; and about 50 complaints and other poems.
The third category includes poems set to his own music: 19 lais; 23 motets, with 2 texts each; and 101 pieces in the standard forms of the period (formes fixes)-ballade, virelai, and rondeau.
The fourth group consists of two large musical works: the hocket David and a Massachussets.
Many of these works reappear in manuscripts other than the five of his "complete edition, " proving the composer's widespread fame. They are all available in modern editions.
Machaut's musical technique represents the ars nova, or new music, of the 14th century, championed by Philippe de Vitry in the preceding generation. It employs duple meter alongside the previously explored triple meter; the triad; isorhythm, that is, a lengthy rhythmic pattern applied to changing melodic phrases; and complex, often syncopated rhythm.
In his Remède de fortune, Machaut teaches several form types, among them the lai, the complaint, the chanson royale, and the formes fixes. His lais are in 12 stanzas, each subdivided into two or four pairs of lines, sung to the same melody; all line pairs differ in length and rhythm, and therefore melodically, except that the last stanza is sung to the music of the first one. Of Machaut's 25 lais 19 are set to music, monophonically (for one unaccompanied voice only), but in two of them monophonic stanzas alternate with canonic ones (of the type of the modern round, then called a chace). The complaint is a poem of many (30-50) stanzas of 4X4 lines each. When sung-only one of some 15 by Machaut is set to music (monophonically) - all stanzas are sung to the same music, each stanza falling into two repeated sections. The chanson royale is a poem of 5 stanzas of 8-11 lines and a refrain of 3-4 lines. Only one of Machaut's eight chansons royales is set to music (monophonically). Ballade, virelai, and rondeau are related forms, all derived from the dance, though only some rondeaux were still connected with dancing at the time. All involve a refrain which is repeated in all stanzas and may comprise 6-20 lines or more. Most of these poems are set to music: 20 of the 21 rondeaux, each for one sung part and one to three instrumental parts; 32 of 38 virelais, most of them monophonically, but some for voice plus one or two instruments; and 42 ballades, mostly for voice and one or two instruments. To these types must be added the motet, the hocket, and the Massachussets. The motet, created shortly before 1200 as a liturgical work, soon became the chief type of serious secular art music. Machaut's motets are among the most artful of the century. Whereas isorhythm appears infrequently in the ballades and rondeaux and not at all in the other form types described above, it is ubiquitous in the motets. They are all written for two sung parts - sung to different texts, two, indeed, to one French and one Latin text simultaneously - and either one or two instrumental parts. The majority are secular, but some are liturgical. The hocket David is one of the last works, and the longest, of a type created during the 13th century. In a hocket two parts alternately give out snatches of a melody, here above an isorhythmic cantus firmus (preexisting melody). Machaut's Mass is probably the outstanding musical work of the entire 14th century. It is a polyphonic setting of the entire Mass Ordinary (the portions sung at every Mass except at the Requiem Mass, the Mass for the Dead), consisting of six sections: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite Missa Est (the last section is rarely set by other composers). Only one such complete setting, the Mass of Tournai (ca. 1300), compiled from various composers, antedates Machaut's, and it is artistically not comparable. Machaut's Mass may have been composed for the Marian Feasts at a chapel served by the Machaut brothers in the 13506 (but it was not, as is often said, written for or sung at the coronation of King Charles V in 1364). The long texts of the Gloria and Credo are set simply in chordal style, each followed by an elaborate Amen. All the other sections are composed in the style of the isorhythmic motet. Almost the entire work is written in four melodic lines, for voices and instruments, and all the sections are unified by a pervasive motif, a technique not employed before or within the following 60 years or so.
(An all-vocal recording of the beautiful ballades and mote...)
(Western music as we know it today has its roots in the fo...)
(Just when you think you know somebody, some uncharacteris...)
(Messe de Notre Dame - Le vray remède d'amour - Le Jugemen...)
(The second Gothic Voices recording was something of a mil...)
(Messe de Nostre Dame - Livre du Voir Dit / Oxford Camerat...)
In his poetry and in his life Machaut shows himself conscious of his lowly origin but also of his worth. He is dignified, but he can be rollicking and rustic; he is realistic and honest rather than formal. Machaut describes nature as he saw it, responds to the events of his day as a poet-historian, and gives a very honest account of his last love affair, that with Peronne, a girl of 18 or 20, with whom he fell in love during his early 60's; elsewhere he records the names of some eight other girls he had loved. But the majority of his poetry deals with love in the manner of the trouvères, whose style he sought to revive.
He was the last composer outside of Germany to write monophonic songs like those of the trouvères. There was no one in France during the second half of the 14th century and the first quarter of the 15th to even remotely approach Machaut's musical eminence.