medieval.org
LP, 1973: EMI Reflexe 1C 063-30109
CD, 1990: EMI CDM 7 63424 2
1. Moult sui de bonne heure nee [3:56]
virelai 37 | Mezzosopran, Laute
2. Quant Theseus, Hercules et Jazon [7:10]
ballade 34 | Mezzosopran, Altus, Douçaine, Fiedel, Laute
3. Hoquetus David [2:03]
hocket | Organetto, Blockflöte, Rebec
4. Doulz viaire gracieus [1:41]
rondeau 1 | Altus, Harfe, Laute
5. Honte, paour, douptance [5:52]
ballade 25 | Mezzosopran, Laute
6. Honte, paour, douptance [2:57]
anon., Faenza No. 117 | Laute, Gambe
7. Fons tocius superbie [1:57]
motet 9 | Mezzosopran, Altus, Douçaine
8. De toutes fleurs [6:21]
ballade 31 | Altus, Harfe, Laute
9. De toutes fleurs [2:23]
anon., Faenza No. 117 | Guittern, Harfe
10. Quant en moy ~ Amour et biaute [2:19]
motet 1 | Mezzosopran, Altus, Lira
11. Comment puet on mieus ses maus dire [3:56]
rondeau 11 | Mezzosopran, Laute
12. Dame, je suis cilz ~ Fins cuers dousz [2:01]
motet 11 | Mezzosopran, Altus, Lira
STUDIO DER FRÜHEN MUSIK
«Qui de sentement ne fait
The
spiritual center in the life of Guillaume de Machaut was the city of
Reims in the Champagne. In the domain of this diocese he was born,
possibly in the small borough of Machault a few miles away from Reims.
About 1327 he became a prebendary of the cathedral of Notre Dame in
Reims and seems to have lived in this town for the rest of his life
until 1377. But he undertook long journeys.
1. New York, Wildenstein Collection, Vogüé manuscript, ca. 1369. The earliest and best manuscript. Very neatly written and lavishly illuminated.
These manuscripts have been consulted in the preparation of two monumental editions of his music:
1. Friedrich Ludwig,
GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT, MUSIKALISCHE WERKE.
Some of the more important longer poems of Machaut in these manuscripts include:
Le Dit du Vergier (very early)
These works have been edited at various times and places - we cite the standard work:
18 Lais, plus 6 without music
1. Virelai.
AbbaAbbaA... This form is light and simple. It derives from the
monophonic form and from danced song. It is never employed for
complicated and intricate compositional manoeuvres.
A word must be brought about the instrumental pieces
in this recording. There are three, one of which - the David hocket - is
all Machaut's, being a singular composition not unlike the earlier
hockets of French province which one Italian early theorist said were
written for flutes.
The lyra,
a small, pear-shaped instrument with three chords which was played in a
vertical position. It has a burdoun chord between the two
melody-chords. © Thomas Binkley, 1973
Thomas Binkley
Andrea von Ramm, Mezzosopran, Harfe, Organetto
Richard Levitt, Altus
Sterling Jones, Fiedel, Lira, Rebec
Thomas Binkley, Laute, Guittern, Blockflöte, Douçaine
[CD]:
Ⓟ 1973 EMI Electrola GmbH, Köln
Digital reamastering Ⓟ 1990 by EMI Electrola GmbH
© 1990 by EMI Electrola GmbH
Aufgenommen: 19.-21.VI.1972, Bügerbrau, München
Produzent: Gerd Berg
Tonmeister: Johann Nikolaus Matthes
Gestaltung Titelseite: Roberto Patelli
GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT
son dit et chant contrefait.»
(He, whose words and song lack true feeling, falsifies all.)
As a young man, he was familiarus
and secretary of Jean de Luxembourg King of Bohemia. He accompanied him
on his various trips and campaigns throughout Europe between 1327 and
1337. We find him present during the siege of Znaim in Lithuania in
December 1328. In January 1329 he was in Königsberg, visiting Breslau
afterwards and taking part in the conquest of Poland and Silesia in
March; in May he was at the king's court in Prague and in June already
back in Paris preparing himself for a trip to the South, to Brescia,
Bergamo, Cremona and Parma.
Later in his life, he retired from
politics, settled and lived as a singer at Reims on a prebend, and
continued to work various masters, among them Jean's daughter Bonne, the
wife of Jean le Bon of France. Subsequent to her death in 1349, he
worked occasionally for Charles II King of Navarre; for Jean Duc de
Berry and probably also for Charles V of France. And it may have been
for the coronation of this king that he wrote the Mass of Notre Dame in
Reims in 1364. One of the last benefactors in his life was Pierre de
Lusignan, King of Cyprus, between 1361 and 1369, and through him Machaut
travelled as far as to Alexandria, possibly also to Cyprus.
It
was also towards the end of his life that he fell in love with a
noblewoman of the Champagne, Péronne d'Armentières. In 1360, he saw her
for the first time when she was not yet 20 years old.
His poem Le Voir Dit,
written between 1362 and 1365, contains 45 letters exchanged between
them and more than 9000 lines of poetry telling of their relationship
and containing interesting remarks on his work and her influence on him.
“Toutes
mes choses ont été faites de vostre sentement, et pour vous
especialement.. (All my works result from your sentiment and are
especially for you.)
The works
Machaut wrote an
enormous quantity of poetry; and more music is preserved by him than by
any other composer of the fourteenth century. There are no fewer than
six large manuscripts devoted to his work, several of them apparently
compiled under his own direction:
2. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, f.fr. 1584. 14th century. Includes fine illuminations among which are two portraits of G. de Machaut himself.
3. Paris, f.fr. 22545 and 22546. Around the same date. This double volume includes a more complete collection of Machaut's works.
4. Paris f.fr. 1585. Possibly ca. 1400. It seems to have been copied from No. 1; but is far less carefully written.
5. Paris f.fr. 1586. ca. 1400.
6. Paris, f.fr. 9221.
ca. 1400. Probably compiled on commission for the Duc de Berry. The
order of pieces departs from that of the more central Machaut
manuscripts and many of the musical details differ. This is the most
splendid of the set and is magnificently illuminated.
Leipzig, Breitkopf und Härtel.
2. Leo Schrade,
POLYPHONIC MUSIC 14TH CENTURY, VOL. 3.
THE WORKS OF GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT.
1956 L'Oiseau-Lyre, Monaco.
Le Jugement du Roi de Behaigne (before 1346)
Le Jugement du Roi de Navarre (1349)
Le Remède de Fortune (Maybe as early as 1342. It includes music and describes many of his lyric forms).
Le Confort d'Ami (1357; sent to the King of Navarre while in prison)
La Fonteinne amoureuse (ca. 1362)
Le Voir Dit (1362-65). For Péronne d'Armentières
La Prise d'Alexandrie (ca. 1370). The presumption that Machaut visited Cyprus in addition to other locations in the Autre-mer is based on this work
La Louange des Dames
E. Höppfner: ŒUVRE LITTÉRAIRE DE GUILLAUME DE MACHAUT
Machaut's musical works are normally laid out in the manuscripts in the following order, and include:
1 Complainte and 1 Chanson Royale
24 polyphonic motets
La Messe de Notre Dame
Hoquetus David
42 polyphonic Ballades
22 polyphonic Rondeaux
33 Chansons Baladées of which 25 are monophonic.
Machaut - Chansons 2
This recording completes a two-volume portrait in sound of that remarkable contemporary of Chaucer and Petrarch, Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377), which we began with monophonic works (CDM 7 63142 2) and continue here with polyphonic works.
Often
music is described in terms of its statistics, the keys, the cadences,
the imitations, the number of parts, and so forth. We find this sterile
and misleading, because it invariably disguises the important musical
issues.
We would rather draw the listener's attention to the
essential characteristics of two different worlds of Machaut's music,
suggesting the general musical (not historic) aims and attributes of
each.
In characterizing his monophonic works, we search for words
and expressions that refer predominantly to emotional qualities and
responses rather than to intellectual content, while the description of
his polyphonic works requires terms which stress the intellectual and
formalistic side of his art (of course, some of both is present in
almost all music). This contrast is to be found within the work of many
composers - consider for example Schönberg's Verklärte Nacht in contrast to his Variationen für Orchester.
The first reveals a concentration on the emotional meaning while the
other places the emphasis on structural ordering. Neither the one nor
the other can
claim to be better, or more advanced, because it is the
demands of a compositional discipline which govern the relationship
between emotional and intellectual response.
To focus on this
problem in the music of Machaut requires an understanding of the
inherent differences between monophonic and polyphonic music. Polyphonic
music consists of more than one composed musical line, which, taken
together, constitute the piece of music.
Monophonic music has but
one composed musical line, on which the musicians elaborate in
performance, and for which an accompaniment frequently is devised by the
players. Monophonic music is not completed by the composer but by the
players themselves in performance. Polyphonic music is complete when it
leaves the composer's pen.
Thus, a player might devise an
accompaniment for a monophonic chanson in accordance to the
characteristics of his favorite instrument, whereas in the performance
of a polyphonic piece, he will select the instrument according to the
range and character of the already written part. Different performances
of a polyphonic piece will tend to be somewhat similar, those of a
monophonic piece, very dissimilar.
The 14th-century composer
controlled the performance of a polyphonic piece in much the same way as
today a composer of electronic music works himself into the performance
by minimizing the creative contribution of the performer. The composer,
then as now, can justify this intrusion only by making the parts and
the parts of parts dependent upon his own thinking, his own
organization. He can for example (and Machaut did, Rondeau 14) write a
piece that is the same played forwards or backwards (one recalls
organizational features in Webern's opus 18 and many other places), an
intellectualism which never could come about in the improvisatory
player-dominated performance of monophonic music.
Clearly, the composer goes about his work quite differently in these two camps. And so should the performer.
The
polyphonic music is carefully constructed, yet Machaut never fails to
be aware of the emotional aims. He selects formal structures not by
chance but according to inherent features of the structure which - to
some extent through tradition - designate the underlying affect of the
composition. Generally speaking, he employs four forms in polyphonic
compositions: (In the following diagrams, capital letter indicates the
repetition of a line of text with its music, a lower case letter
indicates a new text line to that music.)
2. Rondeau.
ABaAabAB... This form is complicated, frequently involving chromatic
experiments and serious, expressive lines. It is not light, but it has
moving qualities.
3. Ballade. a a b... Structurally very
simple, having no refrain line, yet it is a form employed for the most
complicated intellectual constructions. The relationships between the
parts are highly organized (several are in four parts).
4. Motet
isorhythmic. Whereas the forms mentioned above all contain two distinct
musical parts (a and b), the motet is organized by the repetition of
the lower part, with free composed upper parts overriding these
repetitions. The lowest part is instrumental (there is one exception),
and the upper parts contain a different text in each part, sung
together.
This form gains in meaning as the subtle sense of the
seeming disorder becomes clear to the listener. It is the shortest
structure.
They constitute an instrumental equivalent of
the motet. The other two are arrangements of two of his ballads
preserved in an Italian manuscript now in the library of Faenza.
The instruments: Lyra, lute, vielle, harp.
The vielle is the best-known of instruments of this time. It had between three and five chords and was mainly played from the shoulder.
The 13th-century lute
is similar to the Arabic 'ud of our day. Its typically occidental
characteristics appeared as late as in the 15th century when the neck
grew broader and the distance between the chords was changed etc. at
which time they began plucking the instrument with fingers instead of a
plectrum.
The medieval harp was diatonically tuned and was provided with between 21 and 26 chords.