FOURTEENTHCENTURY MUSIC IN REIMS: GUILLUAME DE MACHAUT

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CHAPTER 12

• FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC IN REIMS GUILLUAME DE
  MACHAUT

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The poet-composer Guillaume de Machaut at work
one of the earliest portraits of a Western artist

• Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377) spent most of
  productive life in Reims, a city situated about a
  hundred miles northeast of Paris and then
  possessing a population of about 20,000. Machaut
  was a canon at the cathedral of Reims, yet he was
  a poet and composer as well. His poetry includes
  fifteen long narrative stories and a collection
  of 280 short poems he chose not to set to music.
  Machauts music is almost entirely vocal. His
  settings of his own vernacular poetry include 42
  ballades, 22 rondeaux, 33 virelais, and 19 lais
  (monophonic songs using the form of the
  sequence). In addition, he composed 23 mostly
  religious motets, a four-voice polyphonic Mass,
  and a hocket.

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• Machaut lived in Reims during two calamitous
  events that marked the fourteenth century
  
• the Black Death, a bubonic plague that swept
  across Europe during 1348-1351
  
• the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) an on again,
  off again war between the English and French
  that dragged on for more than a century.
  
• Some of Machauts motets make reference to these
  events, ones he personally experienced.
  

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HOCKET

• The term hocket derives from the Latin word
  hoquetus (hicuup). Hocket is both a contrapuntal
  technique and a musical genre that appeared
  toward the end of the Middle Ages. It occurs
  when the sounds of two voices are staggered by
  the careful placement of rests, thereby creating
  a highly syncopated texture and composition.
  Machauts three-voice Hoquetus David, perhaps
  written for the coronation of King Chares V at
  Reims in 1364, is the most famous example of
  hocket.

A passage from Machauts Hoquetus David showing
the syncopation that is the hallmark of hocket.
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MACHAUT AND THE FORMES FIXES

• By the fourteenth century French musicians,
  influenced by the trouvères, had come to compose
  almost all of their secular art songs in one of
  three formes fixes (fixed forms) ballade,
  rondeau, and virelai. These forms were employed
  for both monophonic and polyphonic secular art
  music. The ballade followed the pattern AAB.
  The term ballade style refers to the composition
  style often found in polyphonic ballades of
  Machaut and his contemporaries. The highest
  voice, called the cantus or melody, carries the
  tune and is supported by slower-moving lower
  voices.

The beginning of Machauts three-voice ballade
Je puis trop bien (c1335)
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RONDEAU

• The medieval rondeau follows the form ABaAabAB.
  There are two musical sections (a and b).
  Sometimes a or b is used to set a text refrain
  (represented by a capital letter) and sometimes a
  or b is used to set a new line of poetry
  (represented by a lower case letter). Machauts
  rondeau Ma fin est mon commencement is both a
  good example of the form of the rondeau and a
  famous instance of retrograde motionthe tenor
  part is the cantus line but going backward the
  contratenor goes forward for half the piece and
  then backward.

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The form of Machauts rondeau Ma fin est mon
commencement

• Cantus 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
• Tenor 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 1
• Contratenor 1 5 10 15 20 15 10 5 1
• Ma fin est mon commencement A My end is my
  beginning
  
• E mon commencement ma fin. B And my beginning my
  end.
  
• Et teneüre vraiëment a This much is
  clear.
  
• Ma fin est mon commencement A My end is my
  beginning
  
• Mes tiers chans iij fois seulement a My third
  voice sings three times only
  
• Se retrograde et einsi fin. b in retrograde, and
  then is done.
  
• Ma fin est mon commencement A My end is my
  beginning
  
• Et mon commencement ma fin. B and my beginning my
  end.
  

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VIRELAI

• The form of the virelai can simply be represented
  as AbbaA. There are two musical sections (a and
  b) as well as a textual refraim (A) sung to music
  a. When the virelai has three strophes, as in
  Machauts Douce dame jolie (Fair sweet lady), the
  form that results is AbbaAbbaAbbaA.

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MACHAUTS MASS OF OUR LADY

• Machauts most famous work is his Messe de Nostre
  Dame (Mass of Our Lady), composed for four voices
  during the 1360s. This Mass is important in the
  history of music on at least four counts
• 1) It is the first polyphony setting of all
  parts of the Ordinary of the Mass.
  
• 2) It is the first cyclic Massall the
  movements are linked by a common musical theme,
  a distinctive descending motive that appears in
  the cantus voice in each movement.
• 3) It demonstrates a new approach to sonority
  the voices are spread out to cover a larger part
  of the sonic spectrum the cantus is placed
  higher and the bass (contratenor bassus) is
  placed lower.
• 4) It exploits the double leading-tone cadence
  in which there is not only a leading tone
  pulling to the 8th degree in the final chord,
  but also one pulling by half- step to the fifth
  degree.

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• Passages from the Kyrie of Machauts Mass of Our
  Lady showing both the wider range of the voices
  as well as a double leading-tone cadence.