Playing with the performer in Medieval music: Machaut’s ideas on love and order in Quant vraie Amour / O series summe rata / Super omnes speciosa (Motet 17)

Open Access
Authors
Publication date 02-2009
Journal Dutch Journal of Music Theory
Event 10th International Conference of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory
Volume | Issue number 14 | 1
Pages (from-to) 32-41
Number of pages 10
Organisations
  • Faculty of Humanities (FGw) - Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research (AIHR)
Abstract Machaut’s seventeenth motet might be one of his earliest works. Under its simple appearance it hides essential poetic reflections about the problematic relationship between paradoxical Love and the regular order of the universe, a problem which he kept pondering all his life. This problem is expressed both by the texts and by the music. To bring his performers to an understanding of his thought, Machaut first misled them, in a clever play with the ambiguities of the notational system of his time. We can still enjoy that play when reading and performing his music.

Document type Article
Note In special issue: Selected Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference of the Dutch-Flemish Society for Music Theory
Language English
Published at http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/vol14/nr01/art05
Downloads
boogaart.315743.pdf (Final published version)
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