Guillaume de Machaut

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – April 1377) was a French poet and a composer in the Ars nova style. He is considered the leading figure in the music of his century.

Quotes

• Et musique est une science
  Qui veut qu'on rie et chante et dance.
  Cure n'a de merencolie,
  Ne d'homme qui merencolie
  A chose qui ne puet valoir,
  Eins met tels gens en nonchaloir.
  Partout ou elle est joie y porte;
  Les desconfortez reconforte,
  Et nes seulement de l'oir
  Fait elle les gens resjoir.
  • And Music is an art which likes people to laugh and sing and dance. It cares nothing for melancholy, nor for a man who sorrows over what is of no importance, but ignores, instead, such folk. It brings joy everywhere it's present; it comforts the disconsolate, and just hearing it makes people rejoice.
  • "Le Prologue", line 85; translation from Ross W. Duffin (ed.) A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) p. 190.

• Qui de sentement ne fait,
  Son dit et son chant contrefait.
  • He who makes songs without feeling
    Spoils both his words and his music.
  • "Remede de Fortune", line 407; translation from Josiah Fisk and Jeff Nichols (eds.) Composers on Music (Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1997) p. 5.

• Et quant ma maladie
  Garie
  Ne sera nullement
  Sans vous, douce anemie,
  Qui lie
  Estes de mon tourment,
  A jointes mains deprie
  Vo cuer, puis qu'il m'oublie,
  Que temprement m'ocie,
  Car trop langui longuement.
  Douce dame jolie,
  Pour dieu ne penses mie
  Que nulle ait signourie
  Seur moy fors vous seulement.
  • And since my malady
    Will not be
    Cured at all
    Without you, sweet enemy.
    Who are glad
    At my torment.
    With folded hands I pray
    To your heart, since it forgets me.
    That it should kill me quickly.
    For I languish too long.
    Sweet pretty lady.
    For God's sake do not think
    That any one has authority
    Over me but you alone.
  • "Douce dame jolie", line 33; translation by Jennifer Garnham. [1]

• Ma fin est mon commencement
  Et mon commencement ma fin.
  • My end is my beginning, and my beginning my end.
  • "Ma fin est mon commencement", line 1; translation from Donald N. Ferguson A History of Musical Thought (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, [1935] 1948) p. 94.

External links

• Texts, translations, bibliographies and discographies of Machaut's music.