Composer of the Month: Guillaume de Machaut (Medieval Period)
- Rachel Beard
- 5d
- 2 min read
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 - 1377) was a French poet and musician. He is one of the earliest composers for whom significant biographical information is available, and a large amount of his music has survived. He embodies the culmination of the poet-composer tradition that stretched back to the traditions of the troubadour and trouvère. His poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote "The Canterbury Tales".
Born in Reims in the Champagne region of France, Machaut was one of seven children. He received a clerical education and took holy orders (ordained a priest) early on. In 1323, he became secretary and chaplain to John I of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia. For over two decades, he accompanied John on diplomatic travels across Europe. Despite the era’s many wars and plagues, Machaut survived the Black Death that ravaged Europe.
Machaut’s musical output was prodigious. He pioneered the first known complete polyphonic setting of the Catholic Mass by a single composer. His Messe de Nostre Dame (early 1360s) used isorhythm (repeated overlapping of a rhythmic pattern in varying melodic forms) and four-voice textures. He also composed dozens of motets, lais, virelais, rondeaux, and ballades, most on themes of courtly love. As a poet, he wrote some 400 lyrics and influential narratives, a semi-autobiographical work, a chronicle of a crusade, and his Prologue, which reflects on the craft of poetry and music.
Machaut spent his later years in Reims, personally overseeing lavish illuminated manuscripts of his complete works for royal patrons, an effort that ensured their exceptional survival. He died in 1377, and his forms echoed well into the 15th century.
In an age of upheaval, Machaut’s elegant, enduring art affirmed the power of music and verse to console, celebrate, and endure.
