Machaut, Guillaume de

1. Introduction.

Machaut is the most important poet and composer of the 14th century, with a lasting history of influence. His unique oeuvre, contained, thanks to the composer's own efforts, in manuscripts that include only his works, stands in many respects for itself: in terms of its volume, its poetic and compositional formulation and quality, but also in the number of genres in whose development Machaut played a crucial role. In the compilation and ordering of his works as well as in the testimony of the texts themselves there is a wealth of information about Machaut's self-awareness and about the production of his works and manuscripts. This ranges from general remarks about poetics and other aesthetic concepts to details about the composition of particular pieces, questions about their fixing and transmission in writing and their realization in sound. Biographical details also allow the works to be placed in a social context.

The greater part of the manuscripts containing his works is taken up by poetry that is not set to music. This comprises over 15 lengthy narrative dits (each with up to 9000 lines) and a collection of lyric poetry known as Loange des dames. Most of the dits are concerned with those members of the high nobility with whom Machaut was in close contact. They bring together allegorical representation, in the tradition of the Roman de la rose, and additional exempla related to historical events and individuals (for example, from the Ovide moralisé), in an instructive framework, to which the author's repeated designation of the works as `traité' corresponds. Thus the Remede de Fortune (written before 1342) contains nine compositions presented as paradigms of lyric genres. The collection of lyrics `ou il n'a point de chant' (`where there is no music') - its title of Loange des dames comes from a rubric given in one of the posthumously copied complete-works manuscripts - contains about 280 poems from the tradition of amours courtois, its content occasionally overlapping with the collection of musical works and dits. It is made up principally of approximately 200 ballades and exactly 60 rondeaux.

In the history of polyphonic music, Machaut is the first artistically important composer of polyphonic music to be known by name. His output holds a key position in the transition between the new ideas that took hold in the decade around 1300 and the music of the late Middle Ages; as a poet-musician he brought together the traditions of secular monophony and the new techniques of the Ars Nova. His 19 extensive lais are a high point in the - by then - long history of this form; the 23 motets take up the achievements of Philippe de Vitry; his Mass is the first cyclic, through-composed setting of the Ordinary. As with the Hoquetus David, the Complainte and Chanson royale (the latter two set to music only in the Remede de Fortune) represent a paradigmatic involvement with older forms. It is critical for the assessment of Machaut's historical position that for the first time French texts are set in subtly-composed works of distinctive and individual character and that functional and structural differentiation between the three so-called formes fixes is now evident: the new polyphonic ballade, of which Machaut wrote 41, making up the bulk of his lyrics set to music, the 22 polyphonic rondeaux and the virelai, called `chanson baladee' and, in the case of the monophonic works, linked with dance-song. How much these new departures had been instigated by Vitry is unclear, owing to the small portion of his works that is now extant. In any case, however, Machaut must have played a decisive role in shaping these genres of the later Middle Ages.

2. Life.

The details of Machaut's life and social position as well as the themes, form and purpose of Machaut's works clearly define his position as a `clerc-écrivain' (Cerquiglini, 1985) in the courtly-aristocratic structure of the late Middle Ages. The two parts of his biography that are backed up by documentary evidence as well as illustrated in numerous statements in the dits support this: the first, that from about 1323 he was in the service of Jean de Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and the second, that from April 1340 he was a canon of Reims Cathedral. Both encourage hypotheses about the undocumented details of his early life: the date of his birth, which must have been between 1300 and 1302; his bourgeois background, his education (probably in Reims), and possibly study for the magister artium. However, the title of magister is not mentioned either in Machaut's texts or in official ecclesiastical documents. That Machaut was named in a Reims document of 1452 along with other `magistri' and by Deschamps in unofficial sources as `maistre' is evidence of the position and renown that he had by that time won.

For about 17 years Machaut's life was shaped by his position in the service of Jean de Luxembourg; this in its turn is critical for the understanding of his poetry. As a clerc in the narrow circle of `domestici familiares' he first of all took the post of aumonier, then of notaire, and lastly secretaire. The dits make it clear that for lengthy periods during this time he shared the restless life of his master: this involved visits to the French court (which in 1323-4 could have led to Machaut meeting Philippe de Vitry), and often swift movement between the home lands of the Luxembourgs in the West and Jean's Bohemian domain in the East, and journeys through much of central and eastern Europe (in particular to Lithuania in 1327-9); but also spending more peaceful periods in Durbuy, Jean's favoured western residence south of Liège, on the bank of the Ourthe. `Li bons roi de Behaigne' is presented as the ideal of a ruler-knight in Machaut's texts, and thereby as a representative of the courtly world around which Machaut's poems are based. His earliest dits, Le dit dou vergier (1330s) and in particular Le jugement dou roy de Behaigne (before 1346), document the role of the poet at court. The chronological order of musical compositions of this time is not at all clear, but the composition of motets and possibly the first lais belong to this period.

As a royal servant, Machaut benefited from the economic security ensured for royal `familiares' through prebends. Machaut is shown to have been in possession of such income, granted to him without the need for his presence in the parishes, in papal documents from 1330 onwards (starting with bulls of John XXII). Before this date he already held a position in Houdain, and the prospect of canonicates in Verdun (1330), Arras (1332), Reims (1333) and a prebend in Saintt Quentin (date unclear). After Benedict XII's action in 1335 to reduce the large numbers of canonicates `in expectatione', Machaut retained only the canonicate in Reims. He took this up `per procurationem' on 30 January 1337 and then in 1340 by his residence in Reims, where he is recorded for the first time as being present on 13 April of that year.

The office of a canon, who lived in a house `extra muros', was linked to liturgical duties, but at the same time offered a material basis and a new kind of space for literary and musical activities. In the forefront of such activity is the long list of increasingly extensive dits (comprising over 40,000 lines of text in total), also associated with the lives of the high nobility. `Moult la servi', said Machaut of Bonne, Jean de Luxembourg's daughter, who was already a highly supportive patron before her father's death in 1346. She is connected with the Remede de Fortune and possibly also with Machaut's cultivation of the new forms of lyrics set to music, as well as with the first extant collection of Machaut's works. Other patrons associated with Machaut included Charles II, King of Navarre, Jean, Duke of Berry, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Pierre de Lusignan. Documented contacts include the Dauphin's (later Charles V) stay in Machaut's house in 1361. The dits also mention more traumatic events, such as the arrival of the plague in 1348-9 and the siege of Reims by the English in 1359-60.

The years 1363-5 saw the writing of Le livre dou voir dit (the Voir dit), with interpolated letters and musical works. Aside from its (at least partly fictitious) setting of the meeting of and love between the elderly poet and his young admirer `Toute Belle' (Peronne), this dit represents a rich documentary source for the events of those years (with details of journeys to different places), for the production and transmission of Machaut's works, his self-awareness and self-depiction, and above all for the process of setting lyric texts to music (chronological overview of the lyrics with musical settings in Leech-Wilkinson, 1993). In Parisian celebrations in early 1368, possibly the scene of a meeting between Machaut and Froissart, Amedee VI of Savoy acquired a `roman', probably a collection of Machaut's works.

In the last decade of his life the redaction and completion of his oeuvre was Machaut's primary concern, and the two-part Prologue (comprising four ballades and a verse passage in dit form), dating from about 1372, was written in connection with this. In the same year Machaut's brother Jean - who had also served Jean de Luxembourg, had been a canon of Reims since 1355 and had lived in the same house as Guillaume - died. In April 1377 Guillaume de Machaut died. The two brothers had established a richly endowed anniversarium, with which the Messe de Nostre Dame is thought to be linked, and were buried in the same grave.

3. Transmission, chronology and stylistic development.

The transmission of Machaut's works documents in a unique way the central role of the book as a planned collection of the complete oeuvre, for the self-awareness of the poet-composer as well as the diffusion of his compositions. The first signs of such `collecting tendencies' can be found in French poetry from the late 13th century onwards (Huot, 1987), for example with the works of Adam de la Halle (F-Pn fr.25566). Machaut's concern with his `livre ou je met toutes mes choses' is in evidence from about 1350, and he clearly involved himself in all aspects, including the programme of miniatures for the richly illuminated presentation manuscripts, prepared mostly for aristocratic patrons. The most important sources for Machaut's music are six large books from the 14th century, which all relate to collections made by the author and must have been copied in part under his supervision. They show different redactions. F-Pn fr.1586 (C) offers the earliest accessible state of his work, possibly representing the first complete-works collection, dating from shortly after 1350. The redaction in US-NYw (Vg) and its copy, F-Pn fr.1585 (B), dates from about 1370. F-Pn fr.1584 (A) contains the only slightly later, last authoritative ordering of the works, with the indication `Vesci l'ordenance que G. de Machaut wet qu'il ait en son livre'. Two further collections were clearly copied after his death: F-Pn fr.22545-6 (F-G) offers a slight accretion in the number of works, while F-Pn fr.9221 (E), copied for Jean, Duke of Berry, contains additional voice-parts, at least some of which are probably not by Machaut. These sources preserve the basic order of narrative dits, followed by unnotated lyric poetry in the Loange des dames and then music, the latter itself ordered by genre: in manuscript A the lais come first, then motets, Mass and Hocket, followed by ballades, rondeaux and virelais. Just as isolated examples of lyrics not set to music appear in the music section, so musical compositions used as examples are integrated among the poems in the Remede de Fortune. Transmission of musical pieces in `repertoire manuscripts' stretches into the 15th century but is limited to about 25 pieces.

Because of this specific transmission situation, it is likely that Machaut's literary and musical works have been preserved practically complete. Beyond that, most of the works can be placed at least roughly into specific creative phases. In this respect the critical factor is the internal order of several groups of works, in principle determined by the order in which they were written. Exceptions to this pattern include the first work in a series and the arrangement of works related to each other. Indications of such groups come from dits that have internal dates or to which dates can be assigned. The basis for the chronological layering of the musical works is the increase in the number of works between C and G. More detailed chronological indications are provided in the Voir dit (c1362-5) for the compositions associated with it. For the earliest period of musical creativity, further layers are revealed by the only partial ordering by genre of the musical works in C: this allows the refrain form compositions (ballade, rondeau and virelai) from the period before 1349 (CI) to be distinguished from those dating from the beginning of the 1350s (CII).

Only the 19 lais are spread more or less evenly over Machaut's entire composing career. The motets belong in a first phase, with 19 compositions definitely written before 1356 and only four more included in Vg and subsequent manuscripts. The most varied picture is offered by the refrain forms: Table 1 (following the work of Ludwig, Günther and Earp) shows the content of CI and the growth in the number of works from CII onwards (not including the compositions in the Remede de Fortune).

TABLE 1: Growth in the corpus of composed short lyric forms.
	Ballades	Rondeaux	Virelais
CI (before 1349)	16	-	20
CII (before 1356)	8	9	5
Vg (before c1370)	12	7	5
A	2	3	2
G	2	1	-
total	40	20	32

As with the dits, of which only the Dit dou vergier dates from before the Reims years, there is some evidence that the new polyphonic ballades were only written from 1340 onwards. 19 of the 20 virelais in CI are monophonic; thereafter polyphony predominates in this genre as well. Thus the ballade is not only numerically in the foreground of Machaut's oeuvre, but also with regard to the beginning of his composition of polyphonic songs. And it is precisely in the ballades that the chronological layering is linked with a change in compositional style. This is immediately obvious in the number and function of voices, in the tendency to extend the two-voice cantus and tenor framework and, later, the change in emphasis from triplum to contratenor. (See Table 2, showing ballades added from CII onwards; without the later added voice-parts; not including the Remede de Fortune). The development from the two-voice (cantus-tenor) framework, through its extension to include a triplum, to the three-voice works with contratenor, corresponds to developments in rhythm and other aspects of composition. Such changes often support external grounds for dating and would in many cases, even without the external information, allow a work to be assigned a chronological position. Through analysis, it is thus possible to assess stylistic change in the tangibly personal idiom of Machaut's songs over a period of 35 years.

4. Evidence of self-awareness and about production.

Machaut is the first and, for a long time, the only composer to comment in differentiated fashion on the making, transmission, reception and evaluation of individual works, as well as on music in the wider context of poetics; such remarks afford a specific notion of the approach to music of the `faiseur', the poet and composer of material in French. The two-part Prologue, which Machaut added to the beginning of his complete works about 1372, is typical of his self-reflection - a fundamental aspect of the literary work - as well as of self-portrayal and self-awareness: it is presented in four ballades with a supplementary prose text as well as the long section of narrative verse. In the dialogue of the ballades Machaut accepts the task given to him by Nature personified to portray `les biens et honneurs qui sont en Amours' more than had been done before. `Scens', `Retorique' and `Musique' serve both as a requirement and as a means for realizing the aim (see fig.1). The ensuing appearance of `Amours' delimits the subject matter (`matere') to courtly love. In the second part of the Prologue the music is clearly in the foreground: from a catalogue of forms to an all-encompassing classification that, following the typical pattern of the Latin tradition of music theory, begins: `Et musique est une science'. Interpretation of this retrospectively formulated central text should take account of numerous similar passages from other dits, from as early as the Remede de Fortune to the Dit de la harpe (probably written in the late 1360s).

Comments on individual works are mostly to be found in the Voir dit. Here it is clear that the normal compositional procedure was to formulate the text first and then its musical setting; but there is also evidence of the quasi-simultaneous conception of text and music based on the `sentement' of a specific situation - from that constantly repeated aspect of the creative process, `experience'. Information about notating, dictating and copying, about the transmission of single works as well as about the process of copying larger parts of his oeuvre is combined with detailed observations about working conditions and the external circumstances of production.

The remarks on R17 are typical of the terms by which Machaut rated his compositions: he stated that for seven years he had completed `ni si bonne chose ni si doulces a oir' (`nothing so good or so sweet to listen to'). Recurring allusions to novelty and specific quality are occasionally varied: so, for example, B33 is characterized as `moult estranges', but with the general comment that it is made in the style (`a la guise') of a `res d'Alemaigne' (a term whose meaning is not altogether clear). The lower voice-parts (`tenures') are described as `aussi douces comme papins dessalés' (`as sweet as unsalted gruel'), and Machaut advised Peronne to listen to the melody `de bien longue mesure', without changes (`sanz mettre ne oster'), as could happen in an instrumental adaptation (Voir dit, letter 10). Evidence of deliberate working out of specific polyphonic solutions corresponds to the role of listening as a basis for aesthetic perception (`plaire'), but also as a final control over the result. Thus Machaut stated that he never let anything out of his hands until he had heard it; referring to B34 (conceived as a four-voice work), he said that on repeated listening it had pleased him very much. But also in the Voir dit we find an interesting case of the later addition of two lower voices to a rondeau melody (in R18).

Such comments on individual works correspond to the key words `divers et deduisans', mentioned with respect to music in the part of the Prologue that deals with the three aspects of formal creation: Scens, Retorique and Musique. As can already be seen at the beginning of the second section of the Prologue, these key words can be interpreted in the light of further texts: rather than forming a mere succession, these aspects interact in a hierarchy in which Scens is dominant (see Cerquiglini, 1985). One indication of this is the centrality of the Orpheus figure in Machaut's works, both as poet (`le poete divin' in the Dit de la harpe) and as musician, who with a tuned instrument, the harp (also a reference to harmony) and as a singer demonstrates the wondrous effect of music; the interconnection of such aspects is evident even in the choice of words, as in the dit section of the Prologue: `Cils poete dont je vous chant / harpoit si tres joliment / et si chantoit si doucement'.

In the wider sphere of Machaut's theoretical reflections on art, the key word `soutil', the emphasis on `maniere' and the aspect of `aourner' are all significant in relation to music. Such differentiation allows the use of categories through which interpretations can be made of individuality, innovation and poetic and compositional techniques as characteristic elements of the oeuvre, and which further provide the conditions for a proper understanding of the links between aesthetics and analysis.

7. Ballades and rondeaux.

Machaut's ballades are the first available evidence of a genuinely new genre of French song, one that remained of central importance in text-setting until the middle of the 15th century. The beginnings of this new kind of ballade cannot be traced before about 1340 (even through indirect witnesses). And its specific combination of features in the context of the newly differentiated formes fixes suggests that Machaut, even if he was not the instigator of the new form, played a crucial role in its development.

Its newness lies in the bringing together of features of different origins. The texts take on a formal, fixed structure that was already evident in the 1330s in the works of Jehan Acart de Hesdin and Jehan de le Mote. In language the ballade adopts the high style of grand chant. The interaction of the new types of voice-parts, conceived in relation to each other, is founded rhythmically on the `quatre prolacions' and tonally on the deliberate exploitation of the qualitative differences between perfect and imperfect intervals, as they would be described in the teaching of contrapunctus and here used in such a context for the first time. Until the late 14th century Machaut was alone in his use of these means for `subtle' text-setting in which every aspect of the text is expressed, from form to semantics, and in the latter case even as far as the meaning of individual words. In this regard only the monophonic songs of Jehannot de Lescurel offer any comparable examples of text-setting.

As with the number of voices and the expansion of a two-voice texture through the addition of triplum and/or contratenor (see §2 above), so also rhythmic procedures and the introduction of different compositional techniques can be used to demonstrate a clear change between the earlier and later compositions. Nonetheless, even the earliest ballades exhibit a specific compositional quality; in the 14th century this is distinctive, and contributes considerably to the impression that, in the sense of a personal style, the works of Machaut can be separated from those of others (of which many composed within his lifetime remain extant). His extreme control of material suggests a high level of reflection. Analytical findings allow the examination of aesthetic criteria, through key concepts such as richness of association, varietas, multi-layered structures, balance on all levels and in particular the interaction of parameters already discussed: from melodic to harmonic to formal (see for example the discussion of B7 by Fuller, 1987). Different solutions to the text-music relationship correspond to the individualization of each composition in terms of an emphatic understanding of `the work'. This individuality determines the boundaries of the examination of isolated aspects and the findings of such investigations. But it offers, at the same time, an essential basis for text-critical studies (most of which have yet to be undertaken).

The status of the new genre is underlined by its position at the beginning of the songs in the complete-works manuscripts. Its breadth and importance is emphasized by the evidently programmatic opening of the series: B1 is the only ballade with an `isorhythmic' structure, and the works that follow it also have specific points of compositional interest; B2 offers an equally singular construction created from the tension between two sonorities; B3 has an intertextual reference as homage to Jehan de le Mote; B4 demonstrates a striking grasp of compositional art in the use of different mensurations (notated in coloration) and a complex pattern of suspensions.

The beginning of B14 is typical of the regular declamatory rhythm of the early ballades (see ex.1a). Rests on the caesura and at the end of a phrase correspond to the formal characteristics of the text-line. The structural sonorities (shown in ex.1b) lead after the caesura in the first text-line to an open sonority (bars 4-5), but then move (with the syntax) at the end of the line (bar 7) through the 3rd on f
-a (an interval described in contemporary theory as `tendere', i.e. `striving' or needing resolution) towards the emphasized central word `Amour'. Dissonances are integrated in short melodic motifs (`Floskeln', ex.1c), which themselves provide consonant series of structural sonarities, even where the consonant notes do not sound together, as for example in bar 10. At the same time, bar 10 marks off a repetition of the sonorities of the opening bars (1-5) after the mid-point of this part of the song (bars 11-13). This balances the asymmetrical relationship in the length of the text-lines and also in the altered repetition of the progressions of bars 7-9 in bars 14-16, itself underlined by the same progression in minims (quavers in transcription) in bar 13. The articulation and emphasis of particular words by the musical structure corresponds in further strophes to a rhetorical stress on key words in the discourse of the poem as a whole.

The degree to which semantics can be understood to operate in each individual setting is shown at the beginning of B6 (ex.2): in the significant melodic descent of the cantus firstly through an octave (bars 1-4) and then through a minor 6th (bars 5-6), in the underlying declamatory rhythm in long note values and above all in the use of the `tendere' imperfect consonances. They are employed to emphasize the word `oy' (`hear') with the written accidental g
(bar 2) and the surprising opening of the second text-line `A toy' with b
-g (after the previous e-g sonority).

One of the key features of text and music of this new genre is the role of the refrain which can be understood in traditional fashion on the one hand as a highlighted résumé at the end of a strophe and on the other hand as a starting-point for the poem and the composition - regardless of whether it is formed from pre-existing material (e.g. in B12 for text and music and in B13, at least for the text) or is completely new. The beginning of B13 (ex.3a) clarifies the relationship between refrain (ex.3b) and strophe in text and music (`Esperance' represents a concretization of the refrain; the music also corresponds). The `indirect preparation' by the opening of the 4th in bar 2 (ex.3a), the deliberate placing of rests (bars 5 and 7) and the emphasis of the words `sans per' by the use of a high tessitura and inserted syncopated hemiola demonstrate Machaut's subtle use of different musical devices. In this way the text-setting opens the way to readings of the text, showing for instance that Machaut uses the verb `asseurer' transitively and not intransitively, as the punctuation of the editions would suggest (for further discussion see Arlt, 1982).

The expansion of the musical texture by the addition of a triplum and, later, of a contratenor voice-part resulted in greater complexity, in particular in the higher proportion of dissonances arising from interval progressions (to what extent the triplum and contratenor in works transmitted in four parts should be seen as alternative extensions of a two-voice work can only be clarified through analysis, and is a matter for debate). However, greater diversity results from the use of multiple levels of mensuration (for instance perfect tempus, major prolatio or perfect modus, imperfect tempus, minor prolatio), syncopation or more varied declamation. The re-use of material in different sections (and not just in similar endings of the musical rhyme in a long `recapitulation') points to a concern with questions of form. For example, in the series of ballades 26 to 28, issues about the use of specific melodic patterns can be studied. But here again the particular demands of the individual text form the starting-point for the composition. The fact that, for B26, Donnez signeurs, both an older and a revised version of the work are preserved, allows glimpses into the compositional process. A comparison of the two versions shows how the systematic reworking of all three voices achieved subtlety on many levels of the definitive version, and therefore allows conclusions to be reached about Machaut's musical and poetic compositional art (see Arlt, 1993, and Bullock). A series of songs from the period of the Voir dit show that Machaut's working-out of specific compositional problems was significant even beyond the ballade genre (Leech-Wilkinson, 1993). Rhythmic and harmonic interaction between the voices is typical of the complexity of the compositions of this period, demonstrable through, for example, the way in which the contratenor supports the 4th between cantus and tenor at the beginning of B32 (ex.4a); in the same piece the interwoven lower voices provide both rhythmic foundation and cross-rhythmic activity against the cantus (ex.4b); and in B36 the changing relationships between voices as a result of the treatment of dissonance (ex.4c). In contrast, the later ballades (38 to 40) exhibit the traits of a late compositional style.

In the rondeaux (which, like the ballades, are mostly polyphonic) Machaut took up an already established compositional form that had been associated since the 13th century with three-voice settings. Yet here also, the first piece in the series, with its structural use of imperfect consonances, points clearly to a new kind of composition (see ex.5). The fact that the basically syllabic declamation of R1 is untypical of Machaut's treatment of the song-form also emphasizes its special position. In general, the greater use of melisma and concentration on compositional innovations along with many-layered correspondences between the two musical parts can be directly associated with the shorter texts and bipartite musical layout (with refrain repeated at the end). The late R19, in which the use of different mensurations in the cantus and lower voices is combined with a long `isorhythmic' recapitulation structure (see Günther, 1962-3, with partial reproduction of the original notation), shows the greater compositional freedom afforded by the form. In an extreme and unique way, the specific formal qualities of the rondeau form are exploited in R14, first transmitted in B (missing from Vg). Here the text Ma fin est mon commencement provides the clue to a realization in which the triplum is created by reading the cantus line in reverse and the second half of the lower voice consists of its first half read in reverse.

WULF ARLT

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