| Guillaume De Machaut |
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| year of birth unknown | |
| machaut, guillaume de | |
| 1377 deaths | |
| medieval composers | |
| french composers | |
| medieval poets | |
| french poets | |
| SHOPPER'S DELIGHT | |
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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, Count Of Luxembourg 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 recount an autobiographical 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 Ballade s, 76 Rondeau x, 39 Virelai s, 24 Lai s, 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 Motet s 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 Couplet s, 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. Principle works of Guillaume de Machaut:
MUSIC Machaut was by far the most famous and influential composer of the 14th century. His secular song output includes Monophonic '' Lai s'' and '' Virelai s'', which continue, in updated forms, some of the tradition of the Troubador s. 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
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