Machaut's Music

Guillaume de Machaut was the foremost poet-composer of his time. Studies look at all aspects of his prodigious output. 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 numberof 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 Masscycle 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 bookthus 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 BOOGAARTTHOMAS 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.