Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377)

[Mandryka]

As far as I understand, the music of the French school's masses first and foremost served the purpose to decorate and embellish the words, and not to express them in the way we percieve the word "express" since the romantic age. Just like the decorated capitals in manuscripts from that time. This is my main objection to Schmelzer's interpretation, which is anything but beautiful and instead expressive in a kind of romantic sense. And his claimed intention of making Machaut's mass sound "new" to us is IMO besides the point. Think of all the great music which sounded new to the first listeners. Should we distort our interpretations of this to make it sound new to us again? What about the Choral symphony or Le Sacre du Printemps? I think Schmelzer has taken his arguments out of the air, with the purpose of creating a sensation. With all the existing fine recordings of Machaut's mass it is of course difficult to make a new, which creates sensation by informed arguments.

One of the ideas which really seems to have influenced Schmelzer is this one, which he found in a paper by Karl Geiringer

One is easily inclined to deny a deeper emotional content to pieces, of which the mind's work emerges so clearly. This could be the reason that medieval pieces,moulded in rigid musical forms, are still completely foreign to us. Understanding music of the eighteenth century is no longer obstructed by this prejudice, thanks to the efforts of entire generations to empathize with the artistic works of that time. Conversely, we acknowledge a greater importance of emotional content [seelischer Gehalt] in the fugues of Bach and Handel than to the outer form. However in the music from medieval times we are still very far away from such an empathy [Einfühlung]; indeed, we have hardly begun to look for emotional content in pieces that are contrapuntally complex. But the question still presents itself: if affective immersion in the spirit of these compositions could manage – also in these works which at first seem to us like pure calculation examples – to reveal a deeper emotional content, should it not be possible in our age, which is internally so near to Gothic art, to empathize with the music of the medieval world, just as the nineteenth century succeeded emotionally to conquer the works of Bach and Handel? In fact,it is possible to bridge this gap between history and modern emotion: in two recent performances of Dufay's Gloria for a public both completely untrained in music history and without the slightest idea of the mastery of the contrapuntal work of this piece, the music made a deep impression, showing its indestructible vital force.

How is he going to " bridge this gap between history and modern emotion?" The clue is in this really interesting point which Schmelzer makes about musica ficta, ornamentation etc. After pointing out that the text underdetrmines performance, and that is a deliberate aspect of the notation because Machaut would have expected his singers to have knowledge about contemporary practices, knowledge which is now lost, he then says

However,this absence is not a lack of knowledge – and only available to those present at the time of the ur-performance – but a system of notation and performance with a conditional openness, giving credit to each performance, and the deliberate lack of elements in the notation is exactly the affirmation of this. In this sense, saying today that one "doesn't know how it was done" is mere nonsense within this system.

The key idea here is conditional openness.

[San Antone]

Thanks for this, I hope to be able to give it some more time later but one thing that struick me straight away is that Schmelzer has explicitly denied your idea that he has taken the mass in an entirely new direction. He thinks that his  "performance is in line with the crucial shift that Marcel Pérès introduced two decades ago with his performance of Machaut's work, giving early music the moral task of the fabulation of history, a fabulation that includes the hybridity of past practices, a fabulation that is part of the performance and, as we endeavour to show, of the works themselves before the "modern" segmentations, works that consist of a diagrammatic writing, but demand an actual performance to be truly complete."

I think this is interesting, I think it makes sense, although  I don't feel totally confident I understand the concept of fabulation. We stared to discuss it a bit in this thread when we talked about the underdetermination of the score.

I'm about to make another post in response to something that Premont said which bears on these questions I think .

I acknowledge in the review that his version is unlike any other with the possible exception of Marcel Peres.  But, evenso, I think Schmelzer's version is very different from Peres.  My review is not negative, imo.

The reviewer in Gramophone made a remark which I think is interesting and one with which I agree:  "his tendency to pitch his arguments from a conceptual high-ground that is notably short on details, thus antagonising 'specialists' but also (more importantly, and as I suspect) frustrating the well-intentioned layman."

But Schmelzer himself argues that his version is so new as to cause the music to sound strange to us.  That is his desire.  Some people do question just how new his version is, though, and the same reviewer says, "To be clear: little of this is new, and Schmelzer's suggestions to the contrary account for at least some of his critics' resistance."

[Mandryka]

  My review is not negative, imo.

Absolutely. If I were to review it I'd be more negative than you because I think he fails in his objective to be expressive.

The reviewer in Gramophone made a remark which I think is interesting and one with which I agree:  "his tendency to pitch his arguments from a conceptual high-ground that is notably short on details,

I wonder what details are missing exactly? The booklet essay seems closely argued for a booklet essay, and he provides references etc for those who which to pursue things further. I think the essay is commendable, the area is difficult though.

[San Antone]

Of course the idea of musical ficta is not new at all.  The subject is probably the most discussed issue in all of the scholarly literature for the period.  One of the things that bothers me, and I daresay others who know something about the subject, is he seems to imply that he is finding something new in his application of ficta.  Other than what seems to be his desire to never miss an opporrttuity to alter a note under the rubric of ficta as opposed to picking and choosing, there's nothing new there.

More to the point, his real intrusion into Machaut's music, imo, was his decision to give his singers seemingly free rein to add melismatic ornamentation at phrase endings, etc.  How 21st century Corsican singers are supposed to know what 14th century French clerics would sing is beyond me.

[Mandryka]

.  How 21st century Corsican singers are supposed to know what 14th century French clerics would sing is beyond me.

This is absolutely NOT what he's saying (and not Pérès neither)

[San Antone]

Absolutely. If I were to review it I'd be more negative than you because I think he fails in his objective to be expressive.

I wonder what details are missing exactly? The booklet essay seems closely argued for a booklet essay, and he provides references etc for those who which to pursue things further. I think the essay is commendable, the area is difficult though.

Yes, he cites all kinds of things but offers little explanation of what they mean in a concrete sense and how they apply in this context. 

[San Antone]

This is absolutely NOT what he's saying (and not Pérès neither)

Then why use them?  I have been told he used them because they have a tradition of singing polyphony going back to the 14th century (and he implies as much in his essay).  I actually doubt that statement is true.  But even if it were, their singing tradition may have absolutely nothing to do with the sacred singing of Machaut's place and time.

[Mandryka]

Then why use them?  I have been told he used them because they have a tradition of singing polyphony going back to the 14th century (and he implies as much in his essay).  I actually doubt that statement is true.  But even if it were, their singing tradition may have absolutely nothing to do with the sacred singing of Machaut's place and time.

Who he? Pérès or Schmelzer? As far a I recall both of them use the Corsicans because they're good at performing imaginatively and expressively. But I really should look at Pérès' essays again.

Does  Pérès really say that he thinks that their tradition goes back to C14? Schmelzer doesn't as far as I recall either.

It's certainly true that what they do has nothing to do with how people did ficta, ornaments in Machaut's Riems.

[San Antone]

Who he? Pérès or Schmelzer? As far a I recall both of them use the Corsicans because they're good at performing imaginatively and expressively. But I really should look at Pérès' essays again.

Does  Pérès really say that he thinks that their tradition goes back to C14? Schmelzer doesn't as far as I recall either.

It's certainly true that what they do has nothing to do with how people did ficta, ornaments in Machaut's Riems.

Not Peres, it was you who said the Corsican tradition went back to the 14th century.  Where did you get that?  I was only talking about Schmelzer, who in his essay alludes to needing singers who have a tradition of knowledge and skills:

"to make them available for later generations, to give them the possibility to revive and continue to activate their contained energy, and in this respect, to preserve the voices of the past. To activate this energy you need people with certain skills."

"Finally, we can return the Messe de Nostre Dame into its premodern(ist) or post-postmodern state, making its hybridity emerge again through diagrammatic, operative performance. We can do this with the help of the collectives and with their knowledge, whose place remained outside history, and whose practices became undercurrents of culture."

Are the Corsican singers with certain skills and a collective with knowledge?  Not clear.  But he is using them for some reason.

In a caption to one of the photograhs he talks about plainchant:

"The plainchant source BM 224, a missal from Reims was kindly delivered for this recording by David Hiley.
The simple written version was elaborated and embellished, based on plainchant sources which we were able to
consult in the collection of Bartosz Izbicki. He was very kind in advising us in this matter and on the execution of
these ornaments by confraternities still in existence in Southern-Europe."

Not sure what confraternities these are.

[Mandryka]

Not Peres, it was you who said the Corsican tradition went back to the 14th century.  Where did you get that? 

I don't know, it may be a figment of my imagination, a I just haven't had the time to investigate it, I think it's a red herring for understanding what  Pérès and  Schmelzer are tying to do anyway, since neither are interested in ur-performance.

Schmelzer's phrase "undercurrents of culture" is interesting because somewhere at read that one of them, Pérès or Schmelzer, wanted people skilled in a tradition of singing which was insulated from the mainland. I just don't recall now why, it may have had something to do with "strangeness"

Schmelzer is big on cofraternities, he sung in one in Sardinia, he's got a good CD dedicated to one from Combrai,

[prémont]

Thanks to Sanantonio and Mandryka for this informed and inspiring discussion.

Relistening to Graindelavoix's Machaut Mass to day, I notice, that they adopt several of Lucy Cross' Musica ficta interpretations. Already in bar two of the first Kyrie they sharpen the c in the Motetus and the g in the Triplum and Tenor (cantus firmus) as well.

But I have a number of questions:

Does any reliable material exist about the original Corsican singing style, and is anything known whether it underwent transformations with time f.i. concerning vibrato and dynamic inflection?

Do we know anything about how much individual singers in small church ensembles were supposed (or allowed) to stick out from the other singers in the group? Because my intuition (an uncertain parameter BTW  ) tells me, that a relative homogenous ensemble was the norm.

Machaut's Mass certainly sounded new to the people who heard it for the first time, but why should it have sounded strange? The listeners probably knew some of Perotin's complexe organum's, which indeed sound stranger, if this word can be used to describe the music at all.

Concerning expressivity: Schmelzer seems to think, that the expression needs to be on a rather extrovert level, if the music shall be made able to talk to us postromantic age listeners. But I think the expression is to be found in the music on a more abstract (introvert) level, and maybe the beauty of sound is the most important element. Others might be the changing harmonies and the phrasing which must emphasize the words. Of course the listener of to day needs adaptation and experience to listen in this way, but it is not beyond the scope of reality.

[San Antone]

Thanks to Sanantonio and Mandryka for this informed and inspiring discussion.

Relistening to Graindelavoix's Machaut Mass to day, I notice, that they adopt several of Lucy Cross' Musica ficta interpretations. Already in bar two of the first Kyrie they sharpen the c in the Motetus and the g in the Triplum and Tenor (cantus firmus) as well.

I just started reading this article:

Musica Ficta and Harmony in Machaut's Songs
Thomas Brothers
The Journal of Musicology
Vol. 15, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 501-528
Published by: University of California Press
DOI: 10.2307/764005
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/764005
Page Count: 28

And I'm about half way through.  The author has made several points so far: 1) ficta was treated differently for open and closed cadences and 2) ficta was added mainly to imperfect consonances (3rd and 6ths) approaching their respective perfect consonances (5th and octaves); 3) there are often two ways to solve the vertical "problem" either by raising one pitch to create a rising leading tone or lowering the other pitch creating a descending leading tone; and 4) in old theoretical writing two terms were put forth: causa necessitatis (necessary) and causa proprenquitastis (possible/optional).  Today there are scholars who lean one way or the other in how they advocate how much ficta to apply to a manuscript.

One of the examples given describes a sixth (starting from the bottom) B/g moving to the octave A/a.  Depending upon whether the cadence was internal (non-final), the lower pitch could be flatted, Bb/g-A/a (mild) or if it were the final cadence it would usually become B/g#-A/a (strong).  It was rare to nonexistent for both pitches to be altered.  (I especially like the Phyrigian sound of using the Bb-A.)

He also made a point to say that in recent work some scholars have attempted to suggest ficta in 14th c. works in order to cause them conform more to our ideas of tonality (something I would be very much against).  But I need to finish the article.

But I have a number of questions:

Does any reliable material exist about the original Corsican singing style, and is anything known whether it underwent transformations with time f.i. concerning vibrato and dynamic inflection?

I haven't done much research into this beyond reading the Wikipedia article.  There it mentions that the once old tradition became virtually extinct by the 1970s when it was resurrected as part of a general nationalistic movement.  Now, whether the resurrection was based  on sound musical scholarship or politically motivated nationalism, one doesn't know.  After listening to Corsican polyphonic singing from other recordings besides the Machaut, it appears that the repertory is more tradition/secular almost folk music sung in a style which does seem to stress individuality.

Do we know anything about how much individual singers in small church ensembles were supposed (or allowed) to stick out from the other singers in the group? Because my intuition (an uncertain parameter BTW  ) tells me, that a relative homogenous ensemble was the norm.

I tend to agree with you that it wold be anathema in sacred music of this period for a singer among the group to "stick out".  The church was very conscious of keeping tabs on the musical role in the service so that it did not become the end in itself instead of a means to enhance the spiritual nature of celebrating the rite.  Drawing attention to a singer or the music would be contrary to the church's disciplined approach.

Machaut's Mass certainly sounded new to the people who heard it for the first time, but why should it have sounded strange? The listeners probably knew some of Perotin's complexe organum's, which indeed sound stranger, if this word can be used to describe the music at all.

I would question the assertion that the music sounded "new" to the members of Reims cathedral:  Machaut based his mass on chant and other mass sections on music that had been used at Reims for a long time.  While his mass was the first we know of composed by one individual, polyphonic masses were not unusual.

Concerning expressivity: Schmelzer seems to think, that the expression needs to be on a rather extrovert level, if the music shall be made able to talk to us postromantic age listeners. But I think the expression is to be found in the music on a more abstract (introvert) level, and maybe the beauty of sound is the most important element. Others might be the changing harmonies and the phrasing which must emphasize the words. Of course the listener of to day needs adaptation and experience to listen in this way, but it is not beyond the scope of reality.

I agree with you.

[Mandryka]

Weren't you complaining about Oxbridge groups?   

Yes. I don't like the Oxbridge style at all. I don't like their posh British accents in the Latin (it reminds me of Grace at my college when someone with an Eton accent would intone "laus et imperium in secula seculorum. Amen" after banging a gavel. Lots of bad memories.) I don't like their penchant for unvaried speedy tempos. And above all I don't like their stiff rhythms. Orlando seem slightly less culpable than Parrott, they're not at all my cup of tea.

[San Antone]

Yes. I don't like the Oxbridge style at all. I don't like their posh British accents in the Latin (it reminds me of Grace at my college when someone with an Eton accent would intone "laus et imperium in secula seculorum. Amen" after banging a gavel. Lots of bad memories.) I don't like their penchant for unvaried speedy tempos. And above all I don't like their stiff rhythms. Orlando seem slightly less culpable than Parrott, they're not at all my cup of tea.

Parrott's tempo is on the quick side, but there are so many other decisions he's made (that are hard to find elsewhere) that make his recording very important, imo.

[San Antone]

Pierre Hamon and Marc Mauillon, et al, have released three recordings of Machaut music.  I have only begun to scratch the surface but so far what I've heard is first rate.  I think Hamon has been a member of Ensemble Gilles Binchois and Mauillon has recorded with Jordi Savall, so they have early music chops.

These three are well worth checking out:



These recordings are of the secular songs, including long form lais.  I would be very interested if they decided to switch gears and record the mass one day.

[Mandryka]

Machaut's Mass certainly sounded new to the people who heard it for the first time, but why should it have sounded strange? The listeners probably knew some of Perotin's complexe organum's, which indeed sound stranger, if this word can be used to describe the music at all.

What he actually says is this

Machaut provided the plainchant of the ordinary for the Lady Mass with a previously-unknown affective polyphonic trope. Rather than breaking the tradition, he cracked it, offering his colleague-singers a musical diagram in the way a "trickster" might do – radically transforming what they were used to singing according to the tradition and to their skills. You can imagine that after the experience of Machaut's Mass the singers would never be the same again.

What I need to know is whether earlier notated polyphonic mass settings were more explicit about things like ornamentation, ficta, relative duration of notes etc. Why does he say "previously unknown"?

[San Antone]

What he actually says is this

Machaut provided the plainchant of the ordinary for the Lady Mass with a previously-unknown affective polyphonic trope. Rather than breaking the tradition, he cracked it, offering his colleague-singers a musical diagram in the way a "trickster" might do – radically transforming what they were used to singing according to the tradition and to their skills. You can imagine that after the experience of Machaut's Mass the singers would never be the same again.

What I need to know is whether earlier notated polyphonic music was more explicit about things like ornamentation, ficta, relative duration of notes etc. Why does he say "previously unknown"?

I am mystified by that quote from Schmelzer.  Nothing in all I've read about this work makes a similar claim.  On the contrary most scholars stress that Machaut went out of his way to choose chant and mass propers which had been used in Reims itself or by a community within walking distance.

To answer your other questions:

What I need to know is whether earlier notated polyphonic music was more explicit?

I doubt it.  If anything, Machaut was more meticulous with his manuscripts than the average scribe. 

Why does he say "previously-unknown affective polyphonic trope"?

I have no idea.

[Mandryka]

What I need to know is whether earlier notated polyphonic music was more explicit about things like ornamentation, ficta, relative duration of notes etc. Why does he say "previously unknown"?


I am mystified by that quote from Schmelzer.  Nothing in all I've read about this work makes a similar claim.  On the contrary most scholars stress that Machaut went out of his way to choose chant and mass propers which had been used in Reims itself or by a community within walking distance.

To answer your other questions:

What I need to know is whether earlier notated polyphonic music was more explicit? What was Machaut's innovation (if any)?

I doubt it.  If anything, Machaut was more meticulous with his manuscripts than the average scribe. 

Why does he say "previously-unknown affective polyphonic trope"?

I have no idea.

I think this is what we have to understand, this is a critical point for making sense of it. The "affective polyphonic trope" which was previously unknown has to do with "hybridity" -- which I think means the way  the score (diagram) and singers'  imagination come together  to make a performance.

[San Antone]

Here's some basic information about musica ficta from Grove:

Musica ficta [musica falsa]
(Lat.: 'false, feigned or contrived music'; synonymous with falsa mutatio, coniuncta).

These terms were used by theorists from the late 12th century to the 16th, at first in opposition to musica recta or musica vera, to designate 'feigned' extensions of the hexachord system* contained in the so-called Guidonian hand. Most scholars accept that notated polyphony of this period required performers to interpret under-prescriptive notation in accordance with their training (by contrapuntal and melodic criteria about which scholars disagree), ensuring the perfection of consonances, and approaching cadences correctly. These requirements could often be met within the rectasystem, but musica ficta was used 'where necessary' – in modern terms only, by 'adding accidentals'; in medieval terms, by 'operating musica ficta'.

In modern usage, the term musica ficta is often loosely applied to all unnotated inflections inferred from the context, for editorial or 'performers'' accidentals rather than notated ones (whether properly recta or ficta).

[NOTE: Some ficta were notated, but most were not.]

Editors usually place accidentals that they have supplied, on behalf of performers, above the affected note or in brackets or small type, to distinguish them from those having manuscript authority. (On the placing of editorial accidentals, see especially Anglès, 1954; Hewitt, 1942; Jeppesen, 1927; Lowinsky, 1964 and 1967; J. Caldwell, Editing Early Music, Oxford, 1985.)

[NOTE: That last was what Lucy Cross ignored in her edition by placing her accidentals within the score, so that one could not see at a glance which were notated and which she suggests.]

I think this is what we have to understand, this is a critical point for making sense of it. The "affective polyphonic trope" which was previously unknown has to do with "hybridity" -- which I think means the way  the score (diagram) and singers'  imagination come together  to make a performance.

Sorry, but I think Schmelzer is blowing bubbles in the air.  He probably managed to out-sell (in both meanings) all other recordings of this work, so good on him.





* The hexachords of musica recta built on G, c and f (and their upper octaves, g, c′, f′,g′) comprise the 'white' notes of the modern diatonic scale from G to e″ with the addition of b♭; each letter name has tagged to it the solmization syllables of its recta hexachords, which define the default interval arrangement of the gamut, the 'normal' relationships of syllables to letters. The internal arrangement of each hexachord was identical (tone–tone–semitone–tone–tone, identified by the syllables ut–re–mi–fa–sol–la). These were the hexachords of musica vera or recta and their constituent pitches those of musica vera or recta in the system attributed to Guido of Arezzo (1025–6 or 1028–32).

[San Antone]

A better explanation from the article on Solmization:

Solmization, as well as being constantly used in plainchant, was taken up at least in descriptions of polyphonic music. However, later writers on the latter subject usually took the basic information for granted, probably because solmization belonged with the rudiments, and polyphony with a later stage of learning. The taking over of solmization into polyphonic theory and practice led eventually to the breakdown or modification of the system. The basic reason for this was the necessity in polyphonic music for vertical intervals to be perfect, a principle that leads to the rule that mi may not be sounded against fa on perfect intervals: 'mi contra fa' is therefore a polyphonic rule concerned with chords. The need to place a perfect 5th above B♮ or below B♭ leads to the introduction of F♯ and E♭, notes that do not exist in the gamut of Table 2 [not available online]. Since the notes of that gamut constituted the total repertory of notes available ('quibus tota musica conformatur'; CoussemakerS, i, 254b), other notes had to be 'imagined', or 'feigned', and were called musica ficta or musica falsa. The practice of solmization, and the presence of new semitones above F♯ and below E♭ in particular, led to the introduction of new hexachords, in this case beginning on D and B♭.