Machaut doesn't float my boat.

Okay, I give up. I've been listening to Guillaume de Machaut (1300 - 1377), in particular his Messe de Notre Dame. I wish I could say I love it but I really can't. I feel somewhat guilty about this. He is regarded as the greatest composer of the 14th Century. Plus there is a lot of his music that I haven't listened to yet. He sounds like a really interesting guy. He survived the Black Plague and not only was a composer but he was also a great poet and as far as we know the Messe de Notre Dame is the first Catholic mass where all the ordinary sections were composed by the same person. But.... I found the music to be ... strange, static, and noodling. Let me explain. There is no harmonic motion in this music, so while there are lots of moving lines (4) it never really goes anywhere.  In a way it strangely sounds like improvisation even though everything is notated. As I said, I do feel uncomfortable with this reaction, I mean this is practically the beginning of Polyphony! It's a huge advance to be able to notate notes and rhythm so that more than one voice can sing at the same time!!  Though notation from this time is still primitive when compared to today. Also, stating that's there's no harmonic motion is really unfair because that concept didn't even exist when Machaut was composing. Nevertheless, Machaut doesn't float my boat, at least not yet. 

I listened to 2 complete recordings; one by the Oxford Camarata led byJeremy Summerly, and the other by the Ensemble Gilles Binchois led by Dominique Vellard. The Kyrie, which is the first of 5 mass parts, is the most interesting. I dipped into 2 other recordings that have caused some controversy among the medievalists because of the tone quality (nasal) and the free melismatic improvisation more in line with Eastern tradition; Ensemble Organum led by Marcel Pérès and Graindelavoix led by Björn Schmelzer. I can't believe for a second that this music was really performed in this manner but as a listening experience it's actually more captivating, especially the Graindelavoix recording. Here's an interesting and enjoyable thread about the Messe de Notre Dame from Talk Classical in which all these issues are discussed.

YouTube links: Oxford Camarata, Ensemble Gilles Binchois (with score), Ensemble Organum (with score including various chants), Graindelavoix (read the comments!). 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Step Back - Plainchant and Hildegard of Bingen

I feel like I jumped the gun with the Carmina Burana post.  Also, let me be clear, when I say this blog is about the evolution of music I'm really talking about Western Classical Music with maybe a little jazz and pop thrown in later. Music has been around a Looong time and I am not qualified to talk in a scholarly way about, well, any of it. But I am qualified to give my impressions and to recommend enthusiastically when I hear something that moves or intrigues me.  Skip over next paragraph if you know what monophony is. The reason musical notation was invented is so the liturgical plainchants of the Catholic church, also called Gregorian chants, could be accurately taught without having to depend on an oral tradition that was susceptible to error. It helped formalize the mass throughout the Church. Here's an example.  As you can hear it's a free, one line melody without a discernible pulse, or, in other words, it's monophonic. The music in Carmina Burana is also monop...
Read more

The Evolution of Music.

The evolution of music fascinates me. I have a hunger to understand the whole arch of music, from the earliest notations to the present day. But it is such a huge undertaking! And how to do it? While I could study the theory of music as one way to understand this huge subject I've decided that listening would be a much more enjoyable way for me. Music theory comes after as a way of explaining what's happening and while I do think it's incredibly valuable it's the music itself, how it SOUNDS, how it moves, and how it moves me that really draws me in. Perhaps this is a romantic notion but I feel that music really has a transformational power, in fact it is that power that impelled me to become a musician. The affect (effect?) that music has on my personally is a blessing but also a puzzling mystery; what exactly is happening, why am I moved, what makes this music beautiful-terrible-awe inspiring? I don't really expect to solve this mystery but I'm going to have a ...
Read more