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Guillaume de Machaut: Notre Dame Mass
BG-622, original LP cover

Of Master Perotin (or Magister Perotinus), little is known but that he officiated at Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris for about fifty years, c.1180-c.1230. It was during his tenure that the Cathedral's great spires were finished. At the time, neither sacred musical compositions nor the masterful sculptures of saints and Biblical stories that adorn the cathedral were signed; the artisans remained anonymous. Perotin’s authorship of the two quadrupla on this disc is known only through a manuscript (likewise anonymous) left by a traveling English musician who was full of praise for the great Perotin and mentioned some of his specific works.

Much more is known about Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-77), who lived a century and a half later. By this time, an appreciation of the individual had arisen, and Machaut did sign his works. He furthermore lived a life that took him far beyond church confines, and his name appears in varied contexts. He was a churchman, poet, diplomat, friend of kings, and a warrior who in his old age, in 1377, took part in the battle of Crècy and was killed there.

The inspired works by these two composers exhibit the development of polyphony in the early Middle Ages, in two historic musical steps, namely organum and discant, and have an importance in music history akin to the Gothic cathedrals in architectural history. Perotin, whose style was called, by the later Middle Ages, the "Ars antiqua," was the first to explore the quadrupla, or four-part polyphonic writing. Machaut, who represented what was called the "Ars nova, " or "new art," brought this first stage of polyphony to its consummation.

With the development of polyphony, we can speak for the first time of music having its own architecture or structure. Both Gothic architecture and music are imbued with the spirit of medieval scholastic philosophy, in which Aristotelian logic is used as a rational underpinning to medieval faith. Thus the genre of the Gothic cathedral, of which Notre Dame (1163-1230) is so famous an example, used a highly rational process to create an atmosphere of mysticism and mystery. In its soaring heights and interplay of light and shadows it creates the feeling of entering another world. But it does this through a rational, "cellular" construction using exactly repeated units of pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses. The music likewise shows a cellular construction in the repetition of rhythmic patterns and canonic imitation of phrases.

Composers' "metrical modes" corresponded to the meters of medieval poetry, such as iambic, trochaic, and dactylic. The traveling Englishman referred to Leonin as the "optimus organista," while the even "greater" Perotin was the "discanter optimus," or master of discant. Perotin wrote not only dupla, but also tripla and quadrupla.

Perotin built upon the work of his predecessor at Notre Dame, Leonin, who had written organum in mainly two-voice polyphony, or duplum, in which the second voice is woven against the tenor chant. Perotin's two quadrupla on this program, Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes, are his two grandest known compositions. Their texts place them in the Christmas season, and Sederunt was probably written for December 26, the feast of St. Stephen. The Graduales begin with a drawn-out chord. In the organum passages, the tenor voice holds long notes while the other three voices engage in the powerful repetition of rhythmic motifs. In the discant passages, all four voices reiterate the rhythms, frequently striking expressive dissonances. The rhythmic motifs suggest secular music and even dance. In contrast to the sensuous sweetness of later polyphony, such as that of the fifteenth century, here the effect is of sharp, angular clashes and abrupt changes, and the distinct units combine to create a monumental edifice of sound.

Machaut wrote more secular music than liturgical, and his ballades, rondeaux and virelais are among the most beautiful expression of the troubadour tradition which in his own time was passing away. His Messe Notre-Dame, said to have been composed for the coronation of Charles V in 1364 (although there is no real evidence for this), was the first polyphonic Mass setting composed by a single musician. Its only predecessor, the somewhat earlier Messe de Tournai, is a compilation of anonymous pieces in different styles. Machaut's Mass, in four voices, is a consummation of the tradition of Gothic polyphony, with its driving rhythmic power, striking chords, and cellular construction. Throughout the Mass runs a seven-note motif which, in the words of Armand Machabey, "may be regarded as the generating cell of this vast composition: not only does one encounter it in each of the sections, but in addition it gives rise to imitations, to fugal entries, to repetitions, to counter-melodies in long time fugal entries, to repetitions, to counter-melodies in long time values (Kyrie)." Also typical of the "unity in diversity" of Gothic rationalism is the isometric rhythm, or the abstraction of a rhythmic pattern from its melodic clothing, this rhythm being used in different melodic forms. Isometric are the Kyrie, end of the Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est. Aside from its historic place in the development of musical form, Machaut's Mass is a unique, magnificent and beautiful composition in its own right, its starkly expressive melodic phrases and rhythmic vitality making it sound today like a masterly anticipation of the experiments of the 1910s and '20.

– S. W. Bennett

GLOSSARY

clausula: a short wordless section, in which the long notes of chant in the tenor are interrupted and instead the tenor movement is quicker, apace with the other voices

conductus: a homophonic compositional form for up to four voices that follow their own lines, in which the tenor melody is composed rather than borrowed from chant

discant: the repetition of rhythmic phrases in fixed meters or measures, "measured polyphony" duplum: two-part polyphonic works

graduale (responsorium graduale): the responsive sung section of the Mass between the Epistle and the Gospel

organum: c. 900-1000, voices are added to chant in parallel fourths and fifths; c. 1100-1280, voice(s) are woven contrapuntally above the tenor

quadruplum: four-part polyphonic works

tenor (from tenere – Latin, to hold): the notes of the chant in greatly lengthened time values, carried by the lowest voice

triplum: three-part polyphonic works

Originally released as Vanguard/The Bach Guild BG-622

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