Guillaume_de_Machaut_-_Kyrie_da_Missa_de_Notre-Dame

''Messe de Nostre Dame'' (''Mass of Our Lady'') is a

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

composed before 1365 by French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...

(c. 1300–1377). Widely regarded as one of the masterpieces of

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance ...

and of all religious music, it is historically notable as the earliest complete setting of the

Ordinary of the Mass The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Mass or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. It is contrasted to the ''pr ...

attributable to a single composer (in contrast to earlier compilations such as the

Tournai Mass Tournai or Tournay ( ; ; nl, Doornik ; pcd, Tornai; wa, Tornè ; la, Tornacum) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Hainaut, Belgium. It lies southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt. Tournai is part of Eurome ...

Structure

The ''Messe de Nostre Dame'' consists of 5 movements, the ''

Kyrie Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek , vocative case of (''Kyrios''), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the Kyrie eleison ( ; ). In the Bible The prayer, "Kyrie, eleison," "Lord, have mercy" derives fr ...

'', '' Gloria'', ''

Credo In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical setti ...

'', ''

Sanctus The Sanctus ( la, Sanctus, "Holy") is a hymn in Christian liturgy. It may also be called the ''epinikios hymnos'' ( el, ἐπινίκιος ὕμνος, "Hymn of Victory") when referring to the Greek rendition. In Western Christianity, the ...

'', and ''

Agnus Dei is the Latin name under which the " Lamb of God" is honoured within the Catholic Mass and other Christian liturgies descending from the Latin liturgical tradition. It is the name given to a specific prayer that occurs in these liturgies, and ...

'', followed by the dismissal ''

Ite, missa est ''Ite, missa est'' are the concluding Latin words addressed to the people in the Mass of the Roman Rite, as well as the Lutheran Divine Service. Until the reforms of 1962, at Masses without the Gloria, '' Benedicamus Domino'' was said instead. ...

''. The tenor of the Kyrie is based on Vatican Kyrie IV, the Sanctus and Agnus correspond to Vatican Mass XVII and the Ite is on Sanctus VIII. The Gloria and Credo have no apparent chant basis, although they are stylistically related to one another.Gombosi, O.
"Machaut's 'Messe Notre-Dame'."
''

The Musical Quarterly ''The Musical Quarterly'' is the oldest academic journal on music in America. Originally established in 1915 by Oscar Sonneck, the journal was edited by Sonneck until his death in 1928. Sonneck was succeeded by a number of editors, including Car ...

'', Vol. 36, No. 2 (April, 1950), pp. 204–224 Machaut's ''Messe de Nostre Dame'' is for four voices rather than the more common three. Machaut added a countertenor voice that moved in the same low range as the

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

, sometimes replacing it as the lowest voice.

Unification

In the liturgy of the Mass, the items of the Ordinary are not performed consecutively, but are separated from one another by

prayers Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ...

and

chants A chant (from French ', from Latin ', "to sing") is the iterative speaking or singing of words or sounds, often primarily on one or two main pitches called reciting tones. Chants may range from a simple melody involving a limited set of notes ...

. Machaut's unification of these items into an artistic whole is the earliest instance of an

setting that is stylistically coherent and was also conceived as a unit. This gesture imposed on the Ordinary is a previously unconsidered abstract artistic idea and potentially influenced composers throughout the ages to continue setting the Ordinary to stylistically coherent music.

Purpose and style

Machaut composed his ''Messe de Nostre Dame'' for the Cathedral at Reims where he served as a canon, a permanent member of the clergy. According to a rubric found at the Cathedral, it would have likely been performed for the Saturday Lady Mass.Arlt, Wulf. "Guillaume de Machaut.” ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,'' ed. Stanley Sadie. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. Some scholars hypothesize that, contrary to popular belief, Machaut did not actually come to work for the Reims Cathedral until the end of the 1350s, composing the mass as an act of devotion and dedication marking his arrival in the precinct. In conformity with the wills of Guillaume and his brother Jean, also a canon at the Cathedral, the mass was believed to have been transformed into a memorial service for them following their deaths. However, neither the specific nature of its performance (if such a performance exists) nor the service the Mass was prepared for has been conclusively ascertained. It is possible that Machaut was familiar with the

, an even earlier polyphonic 14th-century mass setting in which each movement is believed to have been written independently by different composers. The Gloria and Credo of the ''Messe de Nostre Dame'' exhibit some similarities to the Tournai mass, such as textless musical interludes, simultaneous style, and long melismatic Amens. The other four movements of Machaut's mass are composed in motet style with Mass text.

Recordings

It is often stated that the ''Messe de Nostre Dame'' was first recorded by Safford Cape in 1956 for the

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

Archiv Produktion Archiv Produktion is a classical music record label of German origin. It originated in 1949 as a classical label for the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (DGG), and in 1958 Archiv was established as a subsidiary of DGG, specialising in recording ...

Series. However, earlier recordings were made by the Dessoff Choirs under Paul Boepple, in 1951; and a partial recording by Les Paraphonistes de Saint-Jean-des-Matines under

Guillaume de Van Guillaume de Van (2 July 1906 in Memphis – 2 July 1949 in Amalfi) real name William Carrolle Devan, was a French musicologist and choral conductor of American origin. A student at Princeton University, he then traveled to Rome to train in Gregoria ...

in 1936. More recent recordings include the following: *Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame. (1984), Taverner Consort and Taverner Choir directed by Andrew Parrott (EMI ASD1435761) *Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame. (1993),

Hilliard Ensemble The Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. The group was named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard. Founded in 1974, the group disbanded in 2014. Although ...

directed by

Paul Hillier Paul Douglas Hillier OBE (born 9 February 1949) is an English conductor, music director and baritone. He specializes in both early and contemporary classical music, especially that by composers Steve Reich and Arvo Pärt. He was a co-foun ...

(Hyperion CDA66358) *Early Music – Machaut: La Messe De Nostre Dame, Le Voir Dit (1996),

Oxford Camerata The Oxford Camerata is an English chamber choir based in Oxford, England. The Camerata was founded in 1984 by conductor Jeremy Summerly and singers David Hurley and Henrietta Cowling and gave its first performance on 22 May of that year. The ens ...

directed by

Jeremy Summerly Jeremy Summerly (born 28 February 1961) is a British conductor. He was educated at Lichfield Cathedral School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford he conducted the New College Chamber Orchestra and the Oxford Chamber Ch ...

(Naxos 553833) *Guillaume de Machaut – Messe de Notre Dame. (1996), Ensemble Organum directed by Marcel Peres *Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame. (2000), Ensemble Gilles Binchois directed by Dominique Vellard (Cantus 9624) *Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame. (2008), Diabolus in Musica directed by Antoine Guerber (Alpha 132) *Guillaume de Machaut: Messe de Nostre Dame. (2016), Graindelavoix directed by Björn Schmelzer (Glossa GCD-P32110)

Notes

References

Guillaume De Machaut's Messe De Nostre Dame
*Gilbert Reaney, Machaut (London: Oxford University Press, 1971). *Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, ''Machaut's Mass: An Introduction.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. *Anne Walters Robertson. ''Guillaume de Machaut at Reims: Context and Meaning in his Musical Works.'' Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Messe De Nostre Dame Compositions by Guillaume de Machaut Masses (music) Medieval compositions