France: Ars Nova
The beginning of the Ars nova corresponds to the publication of the Roman de Fauvel, a huge compilation of poetry and music, in 1310 and 1314. The Roman de Fauvel is a satire on abuses in the medieval church, and is filled with medieval motets, lais, rondeaux and other new secular forms. The term “Ars nova” (new art, or new technique) was coined by Philippe de Vitry in his treatise of that name (probably written in 1322), in order to distinguish the practice from the music of the immediately preceding age.
Although most music is anonymous, several pieces were known by Philippe de Vitry. De Vitry is one of the first composers of the isorhythmic motet, which distinguishes the fourteenth century. Guillaume de Machaut.
Page of the French manuscript Livres de Fauvel, Paris (ca. 1318), “the first practical source of Ars nova music.”
During the Ars nova era, secular music acquired a polyphonic sophistication formerly found only in sacred music. The dominant secular genre was the chanson, This tradition carried on in France for another two centuries. Chansons were composed in musical forms corresponding to the poetry they set, which were in the so-called formes fixes of rondeau, ballade, and virelai.
In sacred music the long tradition of setting the ordinary of the mass started around mid-century with isolated or paired settings of Kyries, Glorias (parts of the mass). . Machaut composed what is thought to be the first complete mass conceived as one composition.
The style of Ars Nova music is very much one of linear melody with rhythmic complexity. Cadences are the fifth and octave of the scale. Unlike the music of today, thirds and sixths were considered dissonances Leaps were common, leading to speculation of instrumental participation as instruments could more easily perform wide intervals.
Machaut – Guillaume de Machaut was born about 1300, and educated in the region around Reims. He was an extremely significant composer and poet serving as a high-ranking church official in the service of various kings and nobles but also equally comfortable in sacred and secular worlds. His Messe de Nostre Dame is the first complete setting of the Ordinary of the mass by a single composer (see above) that has survived. He also composed courtly poetry and polyphonic songs that are the clear descendants of the troubadour song of previous centuries.
Figure 1. Machaut (at right) receiving Nature and three of her children. From an illuminated Parisian manuscript of the 1350s
Well into the fifteenth century, Machaut’s poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer.
Machaut composed in a wide range of styles and forms. Machaut helped develop the motet and secular song forms.
Machaut, having survived the Black Death that devastated Europe, spent his later years living in Reims composing and supervising the creation of his complete-works manuscripts. He died in 1377.
Poetry
The vast majority of Machaut’s lyric poems reflect 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 did much to perfect and codify these fixed musical forms of the time. Machaut’s narrative output is dominated by works not meant to be sung. These first-person narrative poems include the use of allegorical dreams (songes), allegorical characters, and the situation of the narrator-lover attempting to return toward or satisfy his lady.
Example – See the translation below. Does not the the mood of this song convey the feelings in the lyrics?
The poem below, Puis qu’en oubli, is his 18th rondeau.
Puis qu’en oubli sui de vous, dous amis,
Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.
Mar vi le jour que m’amour en vous mis,
Puis qu’en oubli sui de vous, dous amis.
Mais ce tenray que je vous ay promis,
C’est que ja mais n’aray nul autre amant.
Puis qu’en oubli sui de vous, dous amis,
Vie amoureuse et joie a Dieu commant.
Translation:
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend,
I bid farewell to a life of love and joy.
Unlucky was the day I placed my love in you;
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend.
But what was promised you I will sustain:
That I shall never have any other love.
Since I am forgotten by you, sweet friend,
I bid farewell to a life of love and joy.
Secular music of Machaut: As a composer of the fourteenth century, Machaut’s secular song output includes monophonic lais and virelais, which continue, in updated forms, some of the tradition of the troubadours. He also worked in the polyphonic forms of the ballade and rondeau.
The lyrics of Machaut’s works almost always dealt with courtly love. Machaut mostly composed in five genres: the lai, the virelai, the motet, the ballade, and the rondeau. In these genres, Machaut often utilized creative text setting and cadences. For example, most rondeau phrases end with a long melisma on the penultimate syllable. However, a few of Machaut’s rondeaux, such as R18 “Puis qu’en oubli,” Utube video presented here are mostly syllabic in treatment.
Machaut’s motets often contain sacred texts in the tenor, The top two voices in contrast sing secular French texts with other voices singing in latin, creating interesting concordances between the sacred and secular. In other genres, he does not utilize sacred texts.
Sacred Music
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_nova
Machaut’s cyclic setting of the Mass, identified in one source as the Messe de Nostre Dame (“Mass of Our Lady”), was composed in the early 1360s probably for Rheims Cathedral. It was the first by a single composer and conceived as a unit. Machaut’s composition shares shares many stylistic features with an earlier clyclic Mass the Tournai Mass including textless interludes.
Listen: Kyrie from the Messe de Nostre Dame
By Guillaume de Machaut. Please note this is not a vocal rendition but midi instrumental version. Note that the sounds (tone colors) do not blend or appear to be balanced in a way we would be use to hearing in present day. Try to hear the individual parts
Whether or not Machaut’s mass is indeed cyclic is contested. However, the mass can be said to be stylistically consistent. The chosen chants are all celebrations of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Adding weight to the claim that the mass is cyclic is the possibility that the piece was written or assembled for performance at a specific celebration. The composer’s intention that the piece be performed as one entire mass setting makes the Messe de Nostre Dame generally considered a cycllical work
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/vccs-tcc-mus121-1/chapter/guillaume-de-machaut-e/
Modified – Robert Ford