Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut, sometimes spelled Machault, (born about 1300 – died 1377), was an important Medieval French poet and composer.

Guilllaume de Machaut was "the last great poet who was also a composer," in the words of the scholar Daniel Leech-Wilkinson. Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets including the likes of Geoffrey Chaucer.

Machaut was and is the most celebrated composer of the 14th century (see Medieval music). He composed in a wide range of styles and forms and his output was enormous. He was also the most famous and historically significant representative of the musical movement known as the ars nova.

Machaut was especially influential in the development of the motet and the secular song (particularly the formes fixes, the lai, virelai and ballade). Machaut wrote the Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer, and influenced composers for centuries to follow.

Life

Machaut was probably born and educated in the region around Rheims (his surname most likely derives from his birthplace, the town of Machault, 30 km to the east of Rheims in the Ardennes region). He was employed as secretary to John I, Count of Luxemburg and King of Bohemia, from 1323 to 1346; in addition he became a priest sometime during this period. Most likely he accompanied King John on his various trips, many of them military expeditions, around Europe (including Prague). He was named as the canon of Verdun in 1330, Arras in 1332 and Rheims in 1333. By 1340 Machaut was living in Rheims, having relinquished his other canonic posts at the request of Pope Benedict XII. In 1346, King John was killed fighting at the Battle of Crécy, and Machaut, who was famous and much in demand, entered the service of various other aristocrats and rulers including King John's daughter Bonne, Charles II of Navarre, Jean de Berry, and Charles, Duke of Normandy, who would become King Charles V in 1364.

Machaut survived the Black Death which devastated Europe, and spent his later years living in Rheims composing and recopying his manuscripts. His poem Le Voir Dit (probably 1361-1365) is said by some to be autobiographical, recounting a late love affair with a 19-year-old girl, Péronne d'Armentières, although this is contested. When he died in 1377, other composers such as François Andrieu wrote elegies lamenting his death.

Poetry

Guillaume de Machaut's lyric output comprises around 400 poems, including 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais, 24 lais, 10 complaintes, and 7 chansons royales, and Machaut did much to perfect and codify these fixed forms. Much of his lyric output is inserted in his narrative poems or "dits", such as Le Remède de Fortune (The Cure of Ill Fortune) and Le Voir Dit (A True Story). Many of Machaut's poems are without music, and Machaut stated clearly that for him, writing the poem always preceded (and had greater importance than) composing the music. Other than his Latin motets of a religious nature and some poems invoking the horrors of war and captivity, the vast majority of Machaut's lyric poems partake of the conventions of courtly love and involve statements of service to a lady and the poet's pleasure and pains. In technical terms, Machaut was a master of elaborate rhyme schemes, and this concern makes him a precursor to the Grands Rhétoriqueurs of the 15th century.

Guillaume de Machaut's narrative output is dominated by the "dit" (literally "spoken", i.e. a poem not meant to be sung). These first-person narrative poems (all but one are written in octosyllabic rhymed couplets, like the romance, or "roman" of the same period) follow many of the conventions of the Roman de la Rose, including the use of allegorical dreams (songes), allegorical characters, and the situation of the narrator-lover attempting to return toward or satisfy his lady. Machaut is also responsible for a poetic chronicle of chivalric deeds (the Prise d'Alexandrie) and for poetic works of consolation and moral philosophy.

At the end of his life, Machaut wrote a poetic treatise on his craft (his Prologue).

Machaut's poetry had a direct effect on the works of Eustache Deschamps, Jean Froissart, Christine de Pisan, René I of Naples and Geoffrey Chaucer, among many others.

Principal works of Guillaume de Machaut:

Le Remède de Fortune (The Cure of Ill Fortune) (c.1341) - The narrator is asked by his lady if the poem she has found is by him; the narrator flees from her and comes to a garden where "Hope" consoles him and teaches him how to be a good lover; he returns to his lady.
Jugement du roy de Behainge (Judgement of the King of Bohemia) (before 1342) - The narrator hears a debate between a lady (whose lover is dead) and a knight (betrayed by his lady); in order to proclaim one or the other the most unhappy, the narrator seeks out the advice of the King of Bohemia who consults allegories, and the unhapy knight is declared the winner.
Dit du Lyon (Story of the Lion) (1342) - The narrator comes to a magical island and a lion guides him to a beautiful lady; an old knight comes to the narrator and reveals the meaning of what he sees and gives him advice for being a better lover.
Dit de l'Alérion aka Dit des Quatre Oiseaux (Story of the 4 Birds) (before 1349) - A symbolic tale of love: the narrator raises four different birds, but each one flees him; one day the first (and preferred) bird comes back to him.
Jugement du roy de Navarre (Judgement of the King of Navarre) (1349) - Following up on the Jugement du roy de Behainge, a lady blames the narrator for awarding the prize to the knight: the King of Navarre is consulted and condemns the poet.
Confort d'ami (1357) - Dedicated to Charles II of Navarre (who was a prisoner in France), this poetic consolation gives biblical and classical examples (exempla) of fortitude.
Dit de la Fontaine amoureuse aka Livre de Morpheus (Story of the Amorous Fountain) (1361) - The narrator meets a hopeless lover who must separate from his lady; the two men come to a magical fountain and fall asleep, and in a dream the lady consoles her lover.
Le Voir Dit (A True Story) (1364) - Machaut's masterpiece, this poem (sometimes seen as autobiographical) tells of the sadness and separation of the lover from his lady and of the false rumors that are spread about him. The narrative is stuffed with prose letters and lyric poems exchanged by the unhappy lovers.
Prologue - written at the end of his life (and intended as a preface to his collected works), this allegory describes Machaut's principles of poetry, music and rhetoric.
Prise d'Alexandrie (The Capture of Alexandria) (after 1369) - poetic retelling of the exploits of Peter of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem and of Cyprus.

Music

Machaut was by far the most famous and influential composer of the 14th century. His secular song output includes monophonic lais and virelais, which continue, in updated forms, some of the tradition of the troubadors. However, his work in the polyphonic forms of the ballade and rondeau was more significant historically, and he wrote the first complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass which can be attributed to a single composer.

Sacred music

Machaut's cyclic setting of the Mass, his Messe de Nostre Dame (Mass of Our Lady), was probably composed for Reims Cathedral in the early 1360s. While not the first cyclic mass—the Tournai Mass is earlier—it was the first by a single composer and conceived as a unit. Machaut probably was familiar with the Tournai Mass since the Messe de Nostre Dame shares many stylistic features with it, including textless interludes.

References and further reading

Article on "Guillaume de Machaut," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, editor, La Messe de Nostre Dame, Oxford University Press, 1990.
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Machaut's Mass: An introduction, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Geneviève Hasenohr and Michel Zinc, eds. Dictionnaire des lettres françaises: Le Moyen Age. Collection: La Pochothèque. Paris: Fayard, 1992.
Richard H. Hoppin, Medieval Music. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1978. ISBN 0393090906
Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana.