MACHAUT’S MUSICAL MONUMENTS
SCHOLA ANTIQUA
MICHAEL ALAN ANDERSON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Friday, April 26, 7:30pm Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist (Cleveland)
Saturday, April 27, 7:30pm Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame)
Sunday, April 28, 4pm Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (Chicago)**
**Introductory remarks: Anne Walters Robertson, Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music
and the Humanities in the College (University of Chicago)
PROGRAM
Kyrie from the Mass for Our Lady
Gloria from the Mass for Our Lady
Motet: Fons totius superbie/O livoris feritas/ FERA PESSIMA
Credo from the Mass for Our Lady
Motet: Bone pastor Guillerme / Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR
Sanctus from the Mass for Our Lady
10-MINUTE PAUSE
Agnus Dei from the Mass for Our Lady
Ite Missa Est from the Mass for Our Lady
Rondeau: Ma fin est mon commencement
Virelai: Foy porter
Ballade: Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Virelai: Douce dame jolie
Rondeau: Rose, liz, printemps, verdure
NOTES ON THE PROGRAM
Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377) is one of the fourteenth century’s most prolific composers. In
the company of Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio, and Chaucer, he also stands as one of that century’s most
important poets. Machaut seems to have helped his own legacy by carefully arranging his poetic and musical
works in manuscripts of only his contributions. He served the peripatetic court of Jean de Luxembourg, King
of Bohemia beginning in 1323 until his patron’s death in 1346. Other patrons included Charles II, King of
Navarre, Jean, Duke of Berry, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Pierre de Lusignan, King of Cyprus.
Machaut further held a number of prebends (clerical benefices) in several cities. In 1340, he began a residency
as a canon at Reims Cathedral, where he would remain until his death. His musical output, which spanned
several genres in both sacred and secular realms, played a decisive role in cultivating the musical language
inherited from early fourteenth-century ‘Ars nova’ traditions. This presentation provides a small glimpse of
the Machaut’s considerable musical yield.
The centerpiece of our program is the Messe de Nostre dame (Mass for Our Lady), probably composed in
the early 1360s. The four-part Mass unfolds six sections of the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus,
Agnus Dei, and even the rarely heard Ite Missa Est) and represents the earliest instance of the setting of the
Mass Ordinary that was both stylistically cohesive and conceived as a single unit. There were earlier votive
settings of sections the Mass Ordinary, but nothing approaching Machaut’s offering. The composer seems to
have written the Mass as part of an endowment to the cathedral, a memorial for his own soul and that of his
brother Jean, also a canon at Reims who died in 1372, five years before Guillaume.
Our program also includes two motets. Taking its name from the French word mot (‘word’), the
motet was the most important genre of choral music in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century France. They were
typically scored for three voices in the time of Machaut, and it was common for the upper two voices of a
motet to sing different texts at the same time above an extracted melody from a liturgical chant called a tenor.
The tenor provided a structural ground plan for the work but also became subject to repetition and
transformation. The texts of a motet’s upper voices during this time could be sacred or secular, even political
in nature, and examples in both Latin and the vernacular survive. The poetry of the first motet (Fons totius
superbie/O livoris feritas/FERA PESSIMA) highlights two of the deadly sins—pride and envy—and reminds
the listener of the underlying salvation narrative: Christ’s victory over Satan. The motet Bone pastor Guillerme /
Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR is topical in nature, written in honor of archbishop Guillaume de
Trie, a man notorious in Reims during the time of Machaut for both excommunicating one-third of the
canons in the cathedral chapter and forbidding the celebration of the Divine Office. The composer would
have no reason to honor such a man, and so it could be that this motet acts as a kind of vision of an ideal
archbishop, something to which Guillaume de Trie might aspire.
We conclude the program with a handful of Machaut’s songs. The composer wrote these songs to fit
standard poetic formal types (“fixed forms”) in circulation at that time. We will present examples of the
virelai, rondeau, and ballade. The last category was considered by the composer to be the most noble of the
song forms, and Machaut indeed wrote well over 200 ballades. All of these songs are composed with a catchy
melody that is sometimes harmonized with one or two voices. Both virelais that we will sing are
unaccompanied melodies, as was the case for more than three-quarters of Machaut’s 39 virelais. The two
rondeaus are quite distinct and deserve comment. The first (Ma fin est mon commencement) is ingeniously
constructed as a kind of musical palindrome. Its lowest voice (tenor) sings a retrograde of its own part in the
second section of the piece, while the two upper voices sing retrogrades of each other’s part at the song’s
halfway point. The final song Rose, liz, printemps, verdure is a blissful encomium to an unnamed lady of high
social standing with language that blurs with devotional poetry of the time. In each of the manuscripts in
which the song survives, Machaut calls for the luxuriant use of four parts in Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, making
it a particularly satisfying and grand conclusion to this program of his music.
TRANSLATIONS OF THE MOTETS AND SONGS
Fons totius superbie/O livoris feritas/FERA PESSIMA
Triplum:
Fons totius superbie,
Lucifer, et nequicie
Qui, mirabili specie
Decoratus,
Font of all pride,
Lucifer, and all evil,
You who, with a marvelous beauty
Endowed,
Eras in summis locatus,
Super thronos sublimatus,
Draco ferus antiquatus
Qui dicere,
Had been set on high,
Raised above the thrones,
You who the old fierce dragon
Are called,
Ausus es sedem ponere
Aquilone et gerere
Te similem in opere
Altissimo.
You dared to set up your seat
In the North and to conduct
Yourself in your doings similarly
To the Most High:
Tuo sed est in proximo
Fastui ferocissimo
A judice justissimo
Obviatum.
But soon was
Your most ferocious pride
By the Most Just Judge
Resisted.
Tuum nam auffert primatum;
Ad abyssos cito stratum
Te vidisti per peccatum
De supernis.
For he took away your primacy;
You saw yourself, for your sin,
To the abyss swiftly flung down
From the heights.
Ymis nunc regnas infernis;
In speluncis et cavernis
Penis jaces et eternis
Agonibus.
Now you reign in the depths below
In caves and pits
You lie in punishments and eternal
Agonies.
Dolus et fraus in actibus
Tuis et bonis omnibus
Obviare missilibus
Tu niteris;
Deceit and treachery [are] in your
Deeds, and with your darts
You strive to
Resist all good [men].
Auges que nephas sceleris
Adam penis in asperis
Te fuit Stigos carceris.
Sed Maria
You augment that wicked crime
That kept Adam in the harsh torments
Of the Stygian dungeon.
But I pray that the Virgin Mary,
Virgo, que, plena gratia,
Sua per puerperia
Illum ab hac miseria
Liberavit,
Who, full of grace,
By her childbearing
Has freed him from this
Misery.
Precor elanguis tedia
Augeat et supplicia
Et nos ducat ad gaudia
Quos creavit.
May both increase the sufferings
And punishments of the serpent
And lead us to joy,
Whom she has created.
Motetus:
O livoris feritas,
Que superna rogitas
Et jaces inferius!
O savageness of envy,
You who seek the heights
And lie in the depths!
Cur inter nos habitas?
Tua cum garrulitas
Nos affatur dulcius,
Why do you dwell among us?
While your unceasing speech
Speaks to us the more sweetly,
Retro pungit sevius,
Ut veneno scorpius:
Scariothis falsitas
It stings the more savagely from behind
Like the scorpion with its poison:
The treachery of Iscariot
Latitat interius.
Det mercedes Filius
Lies hidden within.
May the Son of God
Dei tibi debitas!
Give you your just rewards.
Tenor:
Fera pessima.
Most evil beast
Bone pastor Guillerme / Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR
Triplum:
Bone pastor Guillerme,
Pectus quidem inerme
Non est tibi datum;
Favente sed Minerva
Virtutum est caterva
Fortiter armatum.
Good shepherd Guillaume,
An unarmed breast certainly
Was not given to you,
But with the favor of Minerva
It is strongly armed
With a host of virtues.
Portas urbis et postes
Tue munis, ne hostes
Urbem populentur
Mundus, demon et caro,
Morsu quorum amaro
Plurimi mordentur.
You guard the gates and doors
Of your city, lest the enemy
Devastate the city –
The world, the devil, and the flesh –
By whose bitter bite
Many are wounded.
Mitra que caput cingit
Bino cornu depingit
Duo testamenta,
Que mitrifer habere
Debet tanquam sincere
Mentis ornamenta.
The mitre that surrounds your head
Symbolizes the two testaments
With a twofold horn,
Which the bearer of the mitre must have
As the ornaments
Of a pure mind.
Et quoniam imbutus
Et totus involutus
Es imprelibatis,
Ferre mitram est digna
Tua cervix, ut signa
Sint equa signatis.
And since you are imbued
And totally covered
With things unspoiled,
Worthy to bear the mitre
Is your neck, so that the signs
Are equal to the things signified.
Curam gerens populi,
Vis ut queant singuli
Vagos proficere
Prima parte baculi
Attrahere;
In caring for the people
You desire, in order that all should be able
To make progress,
To draw in the wanderers
With the first part of your staff;
Parte quidem alia,
Que est intermedia,
Morbidos regere;
Lentos parte tercia
Scis pungere.
And with the second part [of the staff],
Which is in the middle,
You know how to guide the stick;
With the third part
To spur on the slackards.
Oves predicamine
Et cum conversamine
Pascis laudabili,
Demum erogamine
Sensibili.
You feed your sheep
With preaching
And through praiseworthy conduct,
And finally with
Perceptible payment.
Det post hec exilium
Huic rex actor omnium,
Qui parcit humili,
Stabile dominium
Pro labili.
And after this life
May the King who is creator of us all
Who has mercy on the humble,
Grant him a stable dominion
In place of this transient one.
Motetus:
Bone pastor, qui pastores
Ceteros vincis per mores
Et per genus
Et per fructum studiorum
Tolentem mentes ymorum
Celo tenus,
Good shepherd, who surpasses
Other shepherds in morals
And in family stock
And through the fruit of your studies,
Which carries the minds of those in the depths
Right up to heaven,
O, Guillerme, te decenter
Ornatum rex, qui potenter
O Guillaume, the King
Who rules powerfully
Cuncta regit,
Sue domus ad decorem
Remensium in pastorem
Preelegit.
Over all
Has specially chosen you who are adorned
[To be] the glory of his house,
The shepherd of the Rémois.
Elegit te, vas honestum,
Vas insigne,
De quo nichil sit egestum
Nisi digne.
He has chosen you, honorable vessel,
Distinguished vessel,
Let nothing be poured forth from it
Except [that which is] worthy.
Dedit te, vas speciale
Sibi regi;
Dedit te, vas generale
Suo gregi.
He has given you a special vessel
To Himself, the King;
He has given you as a general vessel
To his flock.
Tenor:
Bone pastor.
Good shepherd.
Rondeau: Ma fin est mon commencement
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin
Et teneure vraiement.
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end
And truly [this] holds.
Ma fin est mon commencement.
Mes tiers chans trois fois seulement
Se retrograde et einsi fin.
My end is my beginning.
My third part just three times only
Moves backwards and so ends.
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin.
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end.
Virelai: Foy porter
Foy porter, honneur garder
Et pais querir, oubeir,
Doubter, servir et honnourer
Vous vueil jusques au morir,
Dame sans per.
I want to stay faithful, preserve your honor,
seek peace, obey,
fear, serve, and honor
you until death,
O peerless Lady.
Car tant vous aim, sans mentir,
Qu'on porroit avant tarir
La haute mer
Et ses ondes retenir
Que me peusse alentir de vous amer,
Sans fausser; car mi penser,
Mi souvenir, mi plaisir
Et me desir sont sans finer
En vous que ne puis guerpir n'entroublier.
Foy porter...
For so great is my love for you,
that one could sooner dry up
the deep sea
and hold back its waves
than I could constrain myself from loving you,
without falsehood; for my thoughts,
my memories, my wishes,
and my peace are perpetually in you,
whom I cannot abandon nor forget.
I want to stay faithful...
Il n’est joie ne joïr
N'autre bien qu'on puist sentir
N'imaginer
Qui ne me samble languir,
Quant vo douceur adoucir vuet mon amer.
Dont loer
Et aourer
Et vous cremir, tout souffrir,
Tout conjoïr, tout endurer
Vueil plus que je ne desir Guerredonner.
Foy porter...
There is no joy nor welcome
nor any other good that one could experience
nor imagine,
which does not seem to me worthless,
whenever your sweetness wants to ease my bitterness of life
Thus I want to praise,
adore
and fear you, and suffer everything,
experience everything, endure everything
more than I desire any reward.
I want to stay faithful...
Vous estes le vray saphir
Qui puet tous mes maus garir et terminer,
Esmeraude à resjoïr,
Rubis pour cuers esclarcir et conforter.
Vo parler, vo regarder,
Vo maintenir, font fuir et enhaïr et despiter
Tout vice et tout bien cherir et desirer.
Foy porter...
You are the true sapphire
that can heal and end all my suffering,
the emerald which brings rejoicing,
the ruby to illuminate and comfort the heart.
Your words, your countenance,
your comportment, make one flee, hate and detest
all vice, and instead cherish and desire all that is good.
I want to stay faithful...
Ballade: Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Envers moy diverse et estrange,
Douceur fine à mon goust amere,
Corps digne de toute loange,
Beauty which is the equal of all beauties,
haughty and distant towards me;
exquisite sweetness, bitter to my taste;
person worthy of all praise,
Simple vis à cuer d'aïmant,
Regart pour tuer un amant,
Samblant de joie et response d'esmay
M'ont ad ce mis que pour amer morray.
kindly face with heart of steel,
look that can kill a lover,
her joyful exterior and distressing reply
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
Detri d'ottri que moult compere,
Bel Acueil qui de moy se vange
Amour marrastre et nompas mere,
Espoir qui de joie m'estrange,
Delay in requiting, for which I pay dearly,
Fair Welcome which masks vindictiveness,
Love, not a kindly but an unnatural mother,
Hope which deprives me of joy,
Povre secours, desir ardant,
Triste penser, cuer souspirant,
Durté, desdaing, dangier et refus qu'ay
M'ont ad ce mis que pour amer morray.
lack of help, burning desire,
sad thoughts, sighing heart,
harshness, disdain, haughtiness and the refusal I receive
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
Si vueil bien qu'à ma dame appere
Qu'elle ma joie en doleur change
Et que sa bele face clere
Me destruit, tant de meschief sen je
I wish to make it clear to my lady
that it is she who turns my joy to pain,
and that her fair radiant face
destroys me, such is the misfortune I suffer,
Et que gieu n'ay, revel ne chant,
N'einsi com je seuil plus ne chant,
Pour ce qu'Amour, mi oueil et son corps gay
M'ont à ce mis que pour amer morray.
and that I enjoy no mirth, pleasure or music,
and can no longer sing as I used to,
because Love, my eyes and her fair self
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
Virelai: Douce dame jolie
Douce dame jolie,
Pour dieu ne pensés mie
Que nulle ait signorie
Seur moy fors vous seulement.
Fair sweet lady,
for God’s name do not think
that any mortal love has mastery over me,
I have love for you alone.
Qu'adès sans tricherie
Chierie
Vous ay et humblement
Tous les jours de ma vie
Servie
Sans villain pensement.
For always without deceit
I have cherished you,
and humbly
served you
all the days
of my life without any base thought.
Hélas! et je mendie
D'esperance et d'aïe;
Dont ma joie est fenie,
Se pité ne vous en prent.
Douce dame jolie…
Alas! I am bereft
of hope and help;
and so my joy is ended,
unless you pity me.
Fair sweet lady…
Mais vo douce maistrie
Maistrie
Mon cuer si durement
Qu'elle le contralie
Et lie
En amour tellement
But your gentle mastery
masters
my heart so strictly
as to govern it
and bind it with love,
so much so
Qu'il n'a de riens envie
Fors d'estre en vo baillie;
Et se ne li ottrie
Vos cuers nul aligement.
Douce dame jolie…
that it desires nothing
but to be in your power;
and your heart grants it
no possibility of turning away.
Fair sweet lady…
Et quant ma maladie
Garie
Ne sera nullement
Sans vous, douce anemie,
Qui lie
Estes de mon tourment,
And since my sickness
will not be cured
in any way
save by you, sweet enemy,
who are glad
at my distress,
A jointes mains deprie
Vo cuer, puis qu'il m'oublie,
Que temprement m'ocie,
Car trop langui longuement.
Douce dame jolie…
then with hands clasped I pray
that your heart, since it neglects me,
may kill me soon,
for I have languished too long.
Fair sweet Lady…
Rondeau: Rose, liz, printemps, verdure
Rose, liz, printemps, verdure,
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour.
Belle, passes en doucour.
Et tous les biens de Nature
Avez, dont je vous aour.
Rose, lily, spring, greenery,
Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
Beautiful lady, you surpass them in sweetness.
And all the gifts of nature
You possess, for which I adore you.
Rose, liz, printemps, verdure,
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour;
Et quant toute creature
Seurmonte vostre valour.
Bien puis dire et par honnour:
Rose, lily, spring, greenery.
Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
And since beyond any creature’s
Your virtue excels,
I must say in all honor:
Rose, liz, printemps, verdure,
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour.
Belle, passes en doucour.
Rose, lily, spring, greenery,
Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
Beautiful lady, you surpass them in sweetness.
Motet translations by Anna Kirkwood, Anne Walters Robertson, et al. Song translations by Stephen Haynes with emendations by
Daisy Delogu. Cover: Lady Nature introduces Meaning, Rhetoric, and Music to Guillaume de Machaut. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale
de France, fr. 1584 (MS A), fol. E (recto).
SINGERS
Soprano: Stephanie Sheffield
Alto: Tom Crawford
Tenor: Matthew Dean, Bill McDougall, Keith Murphy, Frank Villella
Bass: William Chin, Peter Olson
ABOUT SCHOLA ANTIQUA
Schola Antiqua is a Chicago-based professional vocal ensemble dedicated exclusively to the
performance of music before the year 1600. The group is the winner of the 2012 Noah Greenberg
Award from the American Musicological Society for outstanding contributions to historical performing
practices. An ensemble that executes the pre-modern repertory with “sensitivity and style” (Early Music
America), Schola Antiqua takes pride in providing the highest standards of research, performance, and
education involving many underserved repertories in the Western musical canon. Founded in 2000 under
the artistic leadership of Professor Calvin M. Bower from the University of Notre Dame, the ensemble
was Artist in Residence at the University of Chicago in 2006-2007. The ensemble has served in a similar
capacity for the Lumen Christi Institute since 2009. Schola Antiqua has recorded four CDs and is due to
release a fifth in 2013. Much of the music on their albums has never received a modern recording. The
group’s music has aired on the syndicated national broadcasts of With Heart and Voice, Millennium of Music,
and Harmonia and has received reviews in Early Music America, Fanfare, the Journal of Plainsong and Medieval
Music, and Notes (Music Library Association).
ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Michael Alan Anderson, a founding member of Schola Antiqua, was named the ensemble’s
second Artistic Director in 2008. He is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of
Music (University of Rochester), where he specializes in late medieval and Renaissance sacred music.
Anderson received a Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music at the University of Chicago in 2008, and
his book St. Anne in Renaissance Music: Devotion and Politics is forthcoming from Cambridge University
Press in 2013. He is the 2012 winner of the Deems Taylor Award given by the American Society for
Composers, Authors, and Publishers for an article on the late-medieval motet in the journal Early Music
History (2011). Other awards include the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, the
Alvin H. Johnson American Musicological Society 50 Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Noah
Greenberg Award (American Musicological Society), the Grace Frank Grant (Medieval Academy of
America), and the Whiting Foundation Fellowship (University of Chicago). He has published articles in
Early Music, Early Music History, Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Studi musicali.
SPECIAL THANKS
For support of these concerts of Machaut’s music, Schola Antiqua wishes to thank specially the
Lumen Christi Institute, Thomas Levergood, Greg Heislman, Margot Fassler, Anne Walters Robertson,
Daisy Delogu, and Fr. Michael Driscoll. We are also indebted to Elizabeth Davenport, Eden Sabala, and
Julie Brubaker for their assistance and contributions. Additional grant funding has been provided by the
Sage Foundation.
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