Guillaume de Machaut and the 21st century

Hello, there, everyone, and the mention here of Guillaume de Machaut moves
to me to affirm that I regard him as very possibly the greatest composer
of the 14th century in Western Europe, and certainly a vital font and
influence for my own music.

Also, I would regard Johannes Ciconia as one of the most renowned and
luminous composers around the end of the 14th century, with an
amazingly versatile style reflecting both the subtlety of the late
French-oriented Ars Nova and the lyric qualities of the Italian style.

All of these artistic currents and trends have played a role in
shaping the modern 21st-century styles of "common music" (_musica
communis_) based on a variety of tunings and temperaments. It's easy
to point out that 14th-century European intonation was generally
derived, at least in conventional theory, from factors of 2 and 3
only, while we now commonly use factors of 2-3-7-11-13-17-23. However,
tunings are used in practice to realize musical patterns, as well as
to produce new interactions, and many of the patterns I find myself
playing or writing today are those which Machaut helped to make
"standard" or "routine."

While melodic beauty and rhythmic subtlety are basics of his art, I
would emphasize especially his use of complex textures for three and
four voices, and the element of directed harmonic progressions and
their artful anticipation (sometimes delayed or diverted), as
documented by a scholar such as Sarah Fuller.

Of course, even during Machaut's youth, Marchettus of Padua in his
Lucidarium (1318) describes a "fivefold division of the tone" for
polyphonic music which has served as an inspiration for modern
intonational practices, along with Near Eastern sources of around the
same era or earlier which explicitly describe ratios of 2-3-7-11-13.

Today we have such refinements as 17-note circles and minutely
calculated temperaments -- following the general approach of
Marchettus, for example, we might propose an approximate 21-fold
division of the tone into a usual limma of 8 parts and apotome of 13
parts; and a cadential diesis of 6 parts and chromatic semitone of 15
parts. However, now as then, it is a matter of taste rather than of
unalterable mathematical edict.

There is also the question of historical "authenticity": the
distinction between a performance on historical lines in Pythagorean
tuning, or a combination of the Pythagorean and Archytan systems where
some cadential imperfect concords have precise or approximate septimal
ratios, and renditions in modern temperaments where fifths are
somewhat stretched and fourths somewhat compressed from their just
proportions. Given the conclusion of a scholar and interpreter such as
Christoper Page that the purity of the stable concords was likely a
prime concern of 14th-century European musicians, temperament might be
considered the mark of a "modernistic" interpretation. At the same
time, Page recommends the stretching of major imperfect concords at
points such as cadences, citing Marchettus, and a system of just
intonation on keyboard with two Pythagorean chains at a Pythagorean
comma or 63:64 apart could nicely maintain the purity of 2:3:4 while
permitting cadential major thirds and sixths at or near 7:9 and 7:12.

The sheer beauty and sophistication of Machaut's music can influence
and has influenced musical style in tunings ranging from Pythagorean
to 20-equal and indeed 13-equal under the right timbral conditions.
The opening of the 21st century, an epoch sometimes with the ambience
of its own Ars Nova, is a propitious opportunity to honor this
composer of transcendent genius.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

Hello everyone!!

Are there any of his works in
print? I would like to check them
out and study them if possible!
I'm always interested in reading
and studying different composers!

Have a GREAT and SAFE 2003!!

Joel Hickman

--- "M. Schulter" <MSCHULTER@VALUE.NET> wrote:
> Hello, there, everyone, and the mention here of
> Guillaume de Machaut moves
> to me to affirm that I regard him as very possibly
> the greatest composer
> of the 14th century in Western Europe, and certainly
> a vital font and
> influence for my own music.
>
> Also, I would regard Johannes Ciconia as one of the
> most renowned and
> luminous composers around the end of the 14th
> century, with an
> amazingly versatile style reflecting both the
> subtlety of the late
> French-oriented Ars Nova and the lyric qualities of
> the Italian style.
>
> All of these artistic currents and trends have
> played a role in
> shaping the modern 21st-century styles of "common
> music" (_musica
> communis_) based on a variety of tunings and
> temperaments. It's easy
> to point out that 14th-century European intonation
> was generally
> derived, at least in conventional theory, from
> factors of 2 and 3
> only, while we now commonly use factors of
> 2-3-7-11-13-17-23. However,
> tunings are used in practice to realize musical
> patterns, as well as
> to produce new interactions, and many of the
> patterns I find myself
> playing or writing today are those which Machaut
> helped to make
> "standard" or "routine."
>
> While melodic beauty and rhythmic subtlety are
> basics of his art, I
> would emphasize especially his use of complex
> textures for three and
> four voices, and the element of directed harmonic
> progressions and
> their artful anticipation (sometimes delayed or
> diverted), as
> documented by a scholar such as Sarah Fuller.
>
> Of course, even during Machaut's youth, Marchettus
> of Padua in his
> Lucidarium (1318) describes a "fivefold division of
> the tone" for
> polyphonic music which has served as an inspiration
> for modern
> intonational practices, along with Near Eastern
> sources of around the
> same era or earlier which explicitly describe ratios
> of 2-3-7-11-13.
>
> Today we have such refinements as 17-note circles
> and minutely
> calculated temperaments -- following the general
> approach of
> Marchettus, for example, we might propose an
> approximate 21-fold
> division of the tone into a usual limma of 8 parts
> and apotome of 13
> parts; and a cadential diesis of 6 parts and
> chromatic semitone of 15
> parts. However, now as then, it is a matter of taste
> rather than of
> unalterable mathematical edict.
>
> There is also the question of historical
> "authenticity": the
> distinction between a performance on historical
> lines in Pythagorean
> tuning, or a combination of the Pythagorean and
> Archytan systems where
> some cadential imperfect concords have precise or
> approximate septimal
> ratios, and renditions in modern temperaments where
> fifths are
> somewhat stretched and fourths somewhat compressed
> from their just
> proportions. Given the conclusion of a scholar and
> interpreter such as
> Christoper Page that the purity of the stable
> concords was likely a
> prime concern of 14th-century European musicians,
> temperament might be
> considered the mark of a "modernistic"
> interpretation. At the same
> time, Page recommends the stretching of major
> imperfect concords at
> points such as cadences, citing Marchettus, and a
> system of just
> intonation on keyboard with two Pythagorean chains
> at a Pythagorean
> comma or 63:64 apart could nicely maintain the
> purity of 2:3:4 while
> permitting cadential major thirds and sixths at or
> near 7:9 and 7:12.
>
> The sheer beauty and sophistication of Machaut's
> music can influence
> and has influenced musical style in tunings ranging
> from Pythagorean
> to 20-equal and indeed 13-equal under the right
> timbral conditions.
> The opening of the 21st century, an epoch sometimes
> with the ambience
> of its own Ars Nova, is a propitious opportunity to
> honor this
> composer of transcendent genius.
>
> Most appreciatively,
>
> Margo Schulter
> mschulter@value.net
>
>
>

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Joel Hickman wrote:

>Hello everyone!!
>
> Are there any of his works in
>print? I would like to check them
>out and study them if possible!
>I'm always interested in reading
>and studying different composers!
> >
I don't know about "reading and studying" but there are plenty of CDs around.

Graham

three scores freely available at www.cpdl.org. That is not much but
that is available right away from the web

yours truly

François Laferrière

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Joel Hickman <joelhickman_1999@y...>
wrote:
> Hello everyone!!
>
> Are there any of his works in
> print? I would like to check them
> out and study them if possible!
> I'm always interested in reading
> and studying different composers!
>
> Have a GREAT and SAFE 2003!!
>
> Joel Hickman
>

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, "M. Schulter" <MSCHULTER@V...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_41708.html#41708

> Hello, there, everyone, and the mention here of Guillaume de
Machaut moves to me to affirm that I regard him as very possibly the
greatest composer of the 14th century in Western Europe, and
certainly a vital font and influence for my own music.
>
...
>
> The sheer beauty and sophistication of Machaut's music can influence
> and has influenced musical style in tunings ranging from Pythagorean
> to 20-equal and indeed 13-equal under the right timbral conditions.
> The opening of the 21st century, an epoch sometimes with the
ambience of its own Ars Nova, is a propitious opportunity to honor
this composer of transcendent genius.
>

****Hello Margo and everybody!

Was *I* the person to say something "bad" about Machaut? As they
say, "I don't think so..."

If that were true, it would be the beginning of my end... rather than
the end of my beginning, which this is...

I *did* say I was very fond of Josquin, but then again, who isn't
since quite possibly he could be the greatest composer of all time...
but everybody knows that.

Everybody also knows the _Mass of Notre Dame_ and I remember the
first time I heard it with the incredible transition from the stark
monophony of the Gregorian chant to the orchestral elaboration --
which must have been the most startling (maybe even obscene to
them...) effect at that time... Quite amazing. But then I remember
having quite a good recording, and that vinyl has been long lost...

So the good news is that in composing circles, at least in New York,
at the present time, Machaut is *hot, hot, hot!*

[This is really bad, isn't it...? Well now that we've established
that, let me please continue...]

Yes, Machaut is *hot, hot, hot*... two composer friends of mine,
Kitty Brazelton and Eve Beglarian have both trafficked heavily in
Machaut... Eve even has a piece called _Machaut in the Machine Age_
in which she subjects Machaut-like figuration to all kinds of
computer processing, of which she is a modern wizard.

So, the inspiration continues... *this* is the beginning of my end...

Joe Pehrson

--- In tuning@yahoogroups.com, Graham Breed <graham@m...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_41708.html#41716

> Joel Hickman wrote:
>
> >Hello everyone!!
> >
> > Are there any of his works in
> >print? I would like to check them
> >out and study them if possible!
> >I'm always interested in reading
> >and studying different composers!
> >
> >
> I don't know about "reading and studying" but there are plenty of
CDs
> around.
>
>
***Hi Graham!

Well, certainly the _Mass of Notre Dame_ must be in print. In fact,
I thought I had a copy of it, but it appears I no longer do...

I don't know who the publisher would be, but I'm sure that questions
posed to www.medieval.org would come up with something...

J. Pehrson

Hello, there, Joe, Kyle, and everyone.

Please let me clarify that my post on Machaut expresses my own
indebtedness to this composer as a source of my own style, and goes
with a qualification well worth stating that tastes can vary.

Personally I love the music of Machaut, Ciconia, and Josquin, and so
can understand how there is room for lots of preferences among these
composers on the part of different people, or even the same person in
different moods.

In response to a question, I should note that there is a series
available in many libraries called _Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth
Century_ including the complete works of Machaut in Volumes 2 and 3,
edited by L. Schrade. There's the famous Mass, the rich variety of
French songs ranging from one to four voices, and also the very artful
motets and his double hoquet (literally a "hiccup" piece, with the two
upper voices truncating each other, a 13th-century technique to which
Machaut gives a new flavor).

Interesting things can happen if one applies to Machaut a septimal
(2-3-7-9) interpretation of the guidelines Marchettus of Padua gives
in 1318 for intoning cadential progressions, a topic for another
post.

Most appreciatively,

Margo Schulter
mschulter@value.net

Hi Margo and others,

>Please let me clarify that my post on Machaut
>expresses my own
>indebtedness to this composer as a source of my
>own style, and goes
>with a qualification well worth stating that
>tastes can vary.

I think I was probably guilty of grossly overstating, for effect, my reservations about our old friend Guillaume de Machaut. His Notre Dame Mass is a stunning achievement: I never get over how it seems to rise up out of history without comparable precedent, like Devil's Tower or that big rock down in Australia. Ciconia left us no similarly large-scale architectural achievement to compare with it. And I'm very fond of several of Machaut's ballades and virelais, and his very striking use of the tritone in songs like, I think (I'm writing without my vinyl collection nearby for reference) "Amours me fait bien," or whatever it is. The little virelai whose refrain is the line "Dieu! C'est droit / Que je l'aime sans blame(?)" is heart-breakingly beautiful. Very charming, memorable music. It's mainly in what I see as the tremendous technical advances between Machaut's isorhythmic motets and those of Ciconia; in the comparison, it seems that music suddenly blossoms as an independent artform. Isorhythm yields more interesting musical results for Ciconia, seems to me, affecting the entire musical texture, and doesn't strike one as so "mathematical." And there's no Machaut song I find quite as stunning as Ciconia's "Una Panthera." Nevertheless, Machaut is a towering figure and an old favorite of mine. I'd be thrilled to hear his music couched in some of Margo's tuning solutions.

Penitently,

Kyle