Transcript CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 12
FOURTEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC IN REIMS:
GUILLUAME DE MACHAUT
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. Machaut’s 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.
• 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 Machaut’s motets make reference to these
events, ones he personally experienced.
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.
Machaut’s 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 Machaut’s Hoquetus David showing
the syncopation that is the hallmark of hocket.
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 Machaut’s three-voice ballade
Je puis trop bien (c1335)
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).
Machaut’s rondeau Ma fin est mon
commencement is both a good example of the
form of the rondeau and a famous instance of
retrograde motion—the tenor part is the cantus
line but going backward; the contratenor goes
forward for half the piece and then backward.
The form of Machaut’s rondeau Ma fin
est mon commencement
Cantus:
Tenor:
Contratenor:
1 5 10 15 20 25
40 35 30 25 20 15
1 5 10 15 20 15
Ma fin est mon commencement
E mon commencement ma fin.
Et teneüre vraiëment
Ma fin est mon commencement
A
B
a
A
Mes tiers chans iij fois seulement a
Se retrograde et einsi fin.
b
Ma fin est mon commencement
A
Et mon commencement ma fin.
B
30
10
10
35 40
5 1
5 1
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end.
This much is clear.
My end is my beginning
My third voice sings three times only
in retrograde, and then is done.
My end is my beginning
and my beginning my end.
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
Machaut’s Douce dame jolie (Fair sweet lady), the
form that results is AbbaAbbaAbbaA.
MACHAUT’S MASS OF OUR LADY
• Machaut’s 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 Mass—all 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 halfstep to the fifth degree.
Passages from the Kyrie of Machaut’s Mass of Our Lady showing
both the wider range of the voices as well as a double leading-tone
cadence.