This project has resulted in two sets of recordings. The first set, performed by The Orlando Consort and Le Basile, were specially commissioned to accompany a series of essays on this website illustrating issues associated with editing and performing; these will be discussed in greater detail below. Working with The Orlando Consort has led to an exciting new venture to record the complete polyphonic songs of Machaut using our musical edition. Seven CDs are now available from Hyperion.
From the inception of our project, it was important to us to maintain close links with performers and to understand how they would be interacting with the materials with which they are presented. To this end, we are grateful to be working with these specialist ensembles:
The Orlando Consort | Ensemble Le Basile |
Matthew Venner counter tenor Mark Dobell tenor Angus Smith tenor Donald Greig baritone |
Katharine Hawnt cantus Yvonne Eddy cantus Kirsty Whatley brae harp Marc Lewon lute, gittern Uri Smilansky vielle |
The partnership between scholars and performers that our project has fostered has opened a meaningful two-way exchange, inviting the editorial team to incorporate feedback from practitioners into later stages of editing and also to request the recording of extracts of particular interest that might not have been recorded in a commercial context. To make the most of this advantageous position, we used these recordings as the kernel around which to generate a series of discussions concerning different aspects of Machaut's oeuvre, its wider cultural context, the task of editing it, and recommendations for using the edition further. In that context, the recordings are incorporated into the prose as appropriate, along with scores of the music performed and links to images of the sources they are based on.
These recorded examples rarely comprise full works, but present instead short sections for comparison between versions, or at most, the first iteration of the complete music. The combinations of performers for each example were conceived to match the discussions to which they are attached. Those examples that are designed to convey a more general appreciation of a work may present combinations appropriate for the concert-hall stage. Other examples are used to make a specific point about a technical aspect of the music, and in these cases instrumentation was chosen to clarify and enhance the audability of the example, and should not, therefore, be taken as recommendations for use in any other performative context.
These recordings were made at St John's Church, Loughton, February 4th-6th, 2013, and produced and edited by Mark Brown, with Dave Hinitt and Dave Rowell as engineers.
The following table gives an overview of the materials recorded for these online sound files, as well as links to the discussions as part of which the scores and sound files appear.
***********************STOP PRESS!!!!!!!!************************
The Complete Poetry and Music of Guillaume de Machaut Volume 1 is out now!!!!
Volume 1: The Debate Poems is now available in print.
You can also enjoy the entire volume online via the Middle English Texts Website.
Edited and translated by R. Barton Palmer, with art historical commentary by Domenic Leo, and musical commentary by Uri Smilansky, the volume contains Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne, Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre, and Le Lay de Plour.
The Ferrell-Vogüé Machaut Manuscript
Full colour facsimile with introductory study by Lawrence Earp, Domenic Leo and Carla Shapreau. Preface by Christopher de Hamel
"It is a vast manuscript of royal luxury, 390 leaves of parchment, 314 mm. by 220 mm., illustrated with 118 enchanting miniatures by a workshop of court illuminators led by the Master of the Bible of Jean de Sy.They include pictures of gothic chivalry and romance, with mythology and natural history. Music is included on 235 pages of the manuscript, with almost the entire corpus of the ballades, lais and motets of Machaut, as well as his great polyphonic setting of the Mass, the four-part Messe de Nostre-Dame.The manuscript has never before been photographed in its entirety or reproduced in colour."
"Vol. 1 introductory study (225 pages colour/mono), vol. 2 facsimile (789 full colour pages) on 150gsm matt art paper. Full size reproduction, hard bound in buckram, presented in hard slipcover."
Available now from DIAMM Publications.
The Art of Grafted Song: Citation and Allusion in the Age of Machaut by Yolanda Plumley
Available now from Oxford University Press.
"Presents the first detailed exploration of citational practices in the song-writing tradition of fourteenth-century France. The first monograph-length study on the Ars nova chanson with new evidence about the emergence of the new polyphonic chanson. Provides new evidence about the circle of poets and composers who engaged with Machaut and created a new style of poetry and song. Explores little studied collections of lyrics and songs of the period and provides fresh insights and perspectives on Machaut's works."