Composer
Guillaume de Machaut
Poet, priest, and the greatest composer of the 14th century.
Guillaume de Machaut was the leading composer and poet of 14th-century France, and one of the first composers whose life and music we can follow in real detail. His Messe de Nostre Dame is the earliest surviving setting of the complete Mass by a single, named composer, and his love songs are among the most beautiful music of the Middle Ages.
Life in brief
Machaut was born around 1300 in the Champagne region of northern France, probably near Reims. He received a church education, and in the early 1320s he became secretary to John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, a restless warrior-king whom he followed on campaigns across Europe. In return, the king helped him to a series of church posts, and from 1337 Machaut was a canon of Reims Cathedral, where he spent the rest of his long life.
He lived through terrible times - the Black Death swept France in 1348 and 1349, and the Hundred Years' War brought an English siege of Reims in 1359 and 1360 - yet he worked steadily for the great nobles of his day. In old age he wrote Le Voir Dit ("The True Story"), a long poem with letters and songs telling of his love affair, real or imagined, with a young admirer. He died in Reims in 1377.
Unusually for his time, Machaut cared deeply about how his work would be remembered. He oversaw the copying of beautifully illustrated manuscripts collecting his complete poetry and music - the picture above comes from one - which is why so much of it survives.
Music and style
Machaut was the greatest master of the Ars Nova ("new art"), the French style of the 14th century, with its new freedom of rhythm and its use of repeating rhythmic patterns, called isorhythm, to bind long pieces together. Most of his songs use the formes fixes, poetic forms with set patterns of repetition: the ballade, the rondeau, and the virelai. They are songs of courtly love, sung by one voice over one or more instrumental or vocal parts, with long, curling melodies and spicy harmonies that sound strikingly modern today.
He also wrote more than twenty motets, often with different texts sung at the same time, and the Messe de Nostre Dame, which he may have composed for services in memory of himself and his brother at Reims Cathedral.
Key works
- Messe de Nostre Dame (probably 1360s) - a four-voice setting of the whole Ordinary of the Mass, austere and grand.
- "Ma fin est mon commencement" - a rondeau whose title, "My end is my beginning," is also its puzzle: one part is the other sung backwards.
- "Douce dame jolie" - a monophonic virelai with a tune that is easy to remember, one of his most recorded songs.
- "Rose, liz, printemps, verdure" - a rich, flowing rondeau for four voices.
- Le Voir Dit (c. 1363–1365) - his late poetic masterpiece, with songs woven into the story.
Legacy
Machaut's influence on poetry was as great as on music: Geoffrey Chaucer borrowed from his verse. After his death, composers lamented him in music, and his songs set the pattern for French song for a century. Rediscovered in the 20th century, his music is now a cornerstone of the Medieval era repertoire and a favorite of early-music groups.
Where to start listening: "Douce dame jolie" is a lovely first taste, just one voice and a memorable melody. Then try the Kyrie of the Messe de Nostre Dame, and compare it with the chant of Hildegard von Bingen two centuries earlier.