Medieval Composer ( maybe the only composer)

  Guillame De Machaut

Guillame de Machaut must have been quite some guy. He is the only one who is recorded to have made contributions to the medieval music. Others were left out. Well, at least in the book we research on. No pictures or frescoes were left of him and I guess we shall just have to think of him as someone legendary. Now for some serious business.

Guillame De Machaut (1300?-1377?), who was both a famous musician and a poet, was born in the French province of Champagne. Though he was a priest, he spent most of his life as a court official for various royal families. Machaut travelled to many courts and presented mane beautifully decorated pieces to noble patrons. His occupation includes being a canon at the Rheims Cathedral ( Not in the exact sense of the word. A religious place could hardly be that violent), musician, poet, civil servant in the court of the King of Bohemia and later at a French Court.

His hobbies included falconry and horse riding. Guillame suffered from various diseases such as a bad gout and blindness in one eye. He miraculously survived the Black Death of Europe in 1340s.

He was one of the composers who music survived. The decline of the church is reflected in his music which shifts from sacred masses to love songs.

His Notre Dame Mass is the best-known composition of Machaut. It is also for historical importance. Machaut was the first person who treated the mass with polyphony.

Suggested Listening : The Notre Dame Mass