Guillaume de Masho

Since 1323, the scribe, secretary, later in the position of the court ( fr. Familier , lit. “his own man”) King John (Jan) of Luxembourg (1296–1346), whom he accompanied in many of his trips and military campaigns throughout Europe (up to Lithuania in 1327-29). Probably at the request of the king from 1330, Masho began to receive church benefits (prebends) in various churches of France; finally, in 1337 he became a canon in the Reims Cathedral, where (together with his brother Jean, a canon from 1355) he served until the end of his life, including he suffered from the plague there during the epidemic of 1348-49 and suffered a heavy two-month siege of the British in 1359- 60 years old.

In addition to a solid cash allowance, the benefits of the canon's position included permission to leave work, which Masho used widely. Through Bonn of Luxembourg (daughter of John) he entered the high society of French society, was acquainted with her husband John the Good (king of France in 1350-64), their sons Charles V (king of France in 1364-80), Philippe II the Bold (or “Brave "; The founder of the burgundy branch of the house of Valois ). These (and some other large French aristocrats, including the king of Cyprus, Pierre II de Lusignan) were the customers of Masho's poetic and musical works.

Masho’s social circle was likely to include music theorist and composer Philippe de Vitry , historian Jean Froissart , poets Eustache Deschan (who called Masho “the earthly god of harmony”) and, possibly, Jeffrey Chaucer .

In the 1360s, Masho suddenly became interested in a young admirer of his talents, Peronna d'Armantiere (which he called tout-belle , “all-beautiful”); this attraction was clearly reflected in his works (poetic and musical). The last years of his life, Masho was busy with painstaking "publishing" of music and poems for his royal patrons; thanks to this, the manuscript collections of his works, beautifully illustrated, have come down to us in excellent condition.

Masho is the author of 15 poems- dits (up to 9,000 verses long) and the collection of lyric poetry “Loange des dames” (240 poems interspersed with pieces of music). One of the first collections of Masho’s poems, Dit du Lyon (“Di Leo”) dates from 1342, the last, “Prologue” - 1372 (“Prologue” is written as an introduction to the complete works).

Along with numerous texts not intended for singing ( dit ), a number of poems contain musical insets. So, for example, “The Potion of Fortune” (Remède de Fortune; composed before 1342) is a full-scale anthology of song forms of the era with samples of le , complement (complainte) ^[1] , ballads , rondos and wireles .

As a rule, Masho’s texts are written in the first person and reproduce the love motives of the “ Romance of the Rose ” and similar knightly literature.

In the autobiographical poem Le Voir Dit (The True Dee, 1362-65), Masho tells the story of his late love. Responding to a poetic letter sent to him by a girl, the lyrical hero (“I”) describes the story of their love. This is followed by a real meeting, and everything that happened to the “I”, whose stories, written in an eight-syllable verse, are interspersed with poems sustained in a lyrical discourse (some of them have a litter “sing here”) - those that “I” addressed to the admirer, and those that she wrote to him in return - as well as prosaic letters. All together is about 9,000 verses, not counting the letters in prose. The manuscript contains many miniatures depicting envoys, who thereby create the only essential equivalent of "reality": the exchange of messages, a dialogue conceived as such and implemented by means of writing. In this regard, “True Dee” departs from the framework type of a fictitious meeting and argument, which he initially inherits in form, and turns out to be the first harbinger of the epistolary novel of the New Time. Due to the ambiguity inherent in the text itself, its general theme is twofold: on the surface it is a fragmentary, fractional story about an old man's love; in the depths it is a book, folding itself. The True Dee evoked imitation, for example, in Froissard 's L'Horloge amoureux.

To the early " Dit dou vergier " Masho in the early 1370s, composing his complete works (which he considered as the result of his entire creative career), added Prologue. This prologue, according to M. A. Saponov , is “historically the first French poetics known to us”. In addition, this text also includes issues of music, as well as everything that is now called aesthetics - the concept of the content of creativity, its main themes, poetic motives and even the credo of the author.

Masho is one of the most influential (along with Francesco Landini ) composers of the Ars Nova period. Many of his works are written in the solid forms of le , wirele , ballad and rondo . In addition, he is the author of 23 exquisite motets , some of which are polytext (including secular and spiritual texts can be sung at the same time) and isorhythmic (see. Izorhythmy ).

Masho is the author of a four-voice Mass (traditionally called the " Notre Dame Mass "), which was composed for performance in the Reims Cathedral , probably in the 1360s. Mass Masho - the first author’s, that is, written by one composer for the full text of the Ordinary ^[2] .

Masho is also the first well-known composer who independently compiled a catalog of his own works; the modern catalog (see: [1] ) is based on compilations of Masho himself.

• 1938 - “The Most Glorious Vision ”, ballet directed by L. F. Myasin to music by P. Hindemith

• Poésies lyriques, ed. Vladimir Chichmaref. Paris, 1909;
• Oeuvres de Guillaume de Machaut, ed. E. Hoepffner. Paris, 1908-21;
• Musikalische Werke. Bde. 1-3 hrsg. v. Friedrich Ludwig. Leipzig, 1926-1929; Bd. 4 hrsg. v. Heinrich Besseler . Leipzig, 1943; Nachdruck (4 Bde.) Leipzig, 1954.
• Complete Works, ed. by Leo Schrade // Polyphonic Music of the Fourtheenth Century, vls. 2-3. Monaco: Editions de L'Oiseau-Lyre, 1956-57 (full edition of the musical works of Machot);
• Le Jugement du roy de Behaigne et Remède de Fortune, text ed. by James Wimsatt & William Kibler, music ed. by Rebecca Baltzer. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1988 (the poem “The Potion of Fortune” reprints text and music; the publication also contains an English translation);
• Le livre du Voir Dit, ed. by D. Leech-Wilkinson, transl. by RB Palmer. New York, 1998;
• Le Livre du Voir Dit, ed. and trans. P. Imbs, revised with an introduction by J. Cerquiglini-Toulet. Paris, 1999.
• The complete poetry and music. Volume 1: The debate series. Kalamazoo (MI), 2016 (contains the lyrics "Le Jugement dou Roy de Behaingne", "Le Jugement dou Roy de Navarre", sheet music "Lay de Plour"; all texts are translated into English.)

• Eggebrecht HH Machauts Motette Nr. 9 // Archiv für Musikwissenschaft, Jge. XIX — XX (1962-3), SS. 281-93; Jg. XXV (1968), SS. 173-95;
• Saponov M. A. Menzural rhythm and its climax in the work of Guillaume de Masho // Problems of musical rhythm. Digest of articles. Compiled by V.N. Kholopov.- M .: Music, 1978, p. 7-47;
• Saponov M. A. "Slender form of love songs": Manifesto of the era of Ars nova // Ancient music, 2000, No. 4, p.14-15;
• Earp L. Guillaume de Machaut: A Guide to Research. New York, 1995;
• Guillaume de Masho. Prologue to "The Legend of the Garden." Translation from Middle French M. A. Saponov // Ancient Music, 2000, No. 4, p.16-19;
• Lebedev S.N. Super omnes speciosa. Latin poetry in music by Guillaume de Masho // Ancient music, 2004, No. 3-4, p.33-38. [contains an alphabetical index of all motet texts]
• Guillaume de Masho. Latin poems in translations by O. Lebedeva // Ancient music, 2004, No. 3-4, p. 39-44.
• Leach EE Guillaume de Machaut: secretary, poet, musician. Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press, 2011. ISBN 9780801449338 .
• Lebedev S.N. Masho // Big Russian Encyclopedia . Volume 19. Moscow, 2011, pp. 433-434.
• A companion to Guillaume de Machaut, ed. by D. McGrady and J. Bain. Leiden Boston, 2012 ( preview in Google Books ).

• Complete list of musical compositions and extensive discography
• Complete bibliography of epic works
• The poem "Put on your armor ..." (Latin original and Russian translation)
• Mikhail Saponov. "Lovely songs in a harmonious form ..." On the 700th anniversary of the birth of Guillaume de Masho (The Russian Prologue to the "Legend of the Garden" is also given here)
• Network project dedicated to the complete publication of the works of Masho (Exeter, UK)