Machaut's Music: New Interpretations

Guillaume de Machaut (1300-1377) is regarded as the greatest French poet-composer of the middle ages, as he was during his lifetime. A trained secretary, with a passion for collecting, copying and ordering his own work, the number of surviving notated musical works attributed to him far exceeds that of any of his contemporaries. All the main genres of song - lais, virelais, balades, and rondeaux - together with Machaut's motets, and his famous Mass cycle are considered here from a variety of perspectives. These incorporate the latest scholarly understanding of both Machaut's poetry and music, and the material form they take when notated in the surviving manuscripts. The book thus presents a detailed picture of the current range of interpretative approaches to Machaut's music, focusing variously on counterpoint, musica ficta, text setting, musico-poetic meanings, citation and intertextuality, tonality, and compositional method. Several of Machaut's works are discussed by a pair of contributors, who reach conclusions at times mutually reinforcing or complementary, at times contradictory and mutually exclusive. That Machaut's music thrives on such constructive debate and disagreement is a tribute to his scope as an artist, and his musico-poetic achievement.

Contributors: JENNIFER BAIN, MARGARET BENT, CHRISTIAN BERGER, JACQUES BOOGAART, THOMAS BROWN, ALICE V. CLARK, JANE E. FLYNN, JEHOASH HIRSHBERG, KARL KUEGLE, ELIZABETH EVA LEACH, DANIEL LEECH-WILKINSON, ETER M. LEFFERTS, WILLIAM PETER MAHRT, KEVIN N. MOLL, VIRGINIA NEWES, YOLANDA PLUMLEY, OWEN REES, ANNE STONE.
ELIZABETH EVA LEACH lectures in music at Royal Holloway, University of London.

CONTENIDO:

1 Symmetry and Dissymmetry in the Music of the Lay de Bonne Esperance (L18/13)
Virginia Newes
2 SPECULUM MORTIS: Form and Signification in Machaut's Motet Hé Mors / Fine Amour / Quare non sum mortuus (M3)
Jacques Boogaart
3 Observations on Machaut's Hé Mors, com tu es haie / Fine Amour, qui me vint navrer / Quare non sum mortuus (M3)
Alice V Clark
4 Flos / Celsa and Machaut's Motets: Emulation - and Error?
Thomas Brown
5 Texture and Counterpoint in the Four-Voice Mass Settings of Machaut and his Contemporaries
Kevin N Moll
6 The 'Harmony' of the Machaut Mass
Margaret Bent
7 Machaut's Mass and Sounding Number
Owen Rees
8 Singing More About Singing Less: Machaut's Pour ce que tous (B12)
Elizabeth Eva Leach
9 Music Writing and Poetic Voice in Machaut: Some Remarks on B12 and R14
Anne Stone
10 A Portrayal of the Lady who Guards her Honour (B25)
Jehoash Hirshberg
11 Machaut's B-flat Balade Honte, paour (B25)
Peter M Lefferts
12 The Intabulation of De toutes flours (B31) in the Codex Faenza as Analytical Model
Jane E Flynn
13 Machaut's Balade Ploures dames (B32) in the Light of Real Modality
Christian Berger
14 Balades 32 and 33 and the 'res dalemangne'
Jennifer Bain
15 Male and Female Voice in Two Virelais of Guillaume de Machaut
William Mahrt
16 The Marriage of Words and Music: Musique Naturele and Musique Artificiele in Machaut's Sans cuer, dolens (R4)
Yolanda Plumley
17 Rose, lis Revisited
Daniel Leech-Wilkinson
18 Some Observations Regarding Musico-Textual Interrelationships in Late Rondeaux by Machaut
Karl Kugle