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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 October 2017
On first glance, Machaut's Tans doucement/Eins que ma dame/Ruina (M13) is a typical motet with few musical or textual anomalies. Perhaps this is why, with the exception of a brief article by Alice V. Clark, little extensive, individual study of M13 has been conducted. This article examines the musico-poetic cues for Fortune found in M13’s many forms of reversal, duality and upset order. The discovery of a new acrostic which references the Roman de Fauvel, whose interpolated motet Super cathedram/Presidentes in thronis/Ruina (F4) is the source of M13’s tenor, further supports a Fortune-based reading of this motet. M13 may therefore be included among the Fortune-prominent motets proposed by Anna Zayaruznaya and Jacques Boogaart (M12, M14 and M15). Understanding that Machaut intentionally ordered his motets, M13 fills a sequential gap, suggesting that M12–15 may serve as a meaningfully ordered group of Fortune-based motets. The acrostic's Fauvel reference also provides additional connections between M13 and F4, offering insight into ways Machaut may have responded to and cleverly cited his sources.
1 The version of the Roman containing musical interpolations is found in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fond français 146. If an original liturgical source exists for the tenor shared by M13 and F4, it has not yet been identified.
2 I am grateful for feedback received on an earlier version of this paper, presented at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2013.
3 Alice V. Clark's short article on M13 is a valuable study of the ways M13 and F4 are connected through the tenor ‘Ruina’, but it does not explore M13’s musico-poetic structure in depth. Clark, Alice V., ‘ Prope est Ruina: The Transformation of a Medieval Tenor’, in Music, Dance, and Society, ed. Buckley, Anne and Cyrus, Cynthia J. (Kalamazoo, 2011), 129–42Google Scholar.
4 Zayaruznaya, Anna, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”: Crossed and Contradictory Voices in Machaut's Motets’, Early Music History, 28 (2009), 185–240 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Jacques Boogaart also discusses rhythms in M8, 12, 14 and 15 that are representative of Fortune in ‘“O series summe rata”: De motetten van Guillaume de Machaut. De ordening van het corpus en de samenhang van tekst en muziek’, Ph.D. diss., Universiteit Utrecht (2001), 130–47 and 491–3.
5 Robertson, Anne Walters, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims (Cambridge, 2002), 79–102 Google Scholar and 154–63. Brown, Thomas, ‘Another Mirror of Lovers? Order, Structure, and Allusion in Machaut's Motets’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 10 (2011), 126–33Google Scholar. Though my analysis focuses more on the secular characteristics of M13, like Thomas Brown, I do not think such a reading conflicts with more sacred readings such as Robertson's, as will be discussed further. While scholars may disagree on how convincing a given rationale for grouping is, each potential grouping centres on the same motets, suggesting that it is indeed a convincing grouping.
6 Zayaruznaya, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 206–9.
7 Ibid., 194–7.
8 The triplum and motetus do emphasise different things – the lady's falsity and the lover's sincerity, respectively – as insightfully noted by my reviewer. The general plots of the two upper-voice texts proceed similarly.
9 Kevin Brownlee and Margaret Bent's articles on M15 provide the foundation for interpretations of M15. Brownlee, Kevin, ‘Machaut's Motet 15 and the Roman de la Rose: The Literary Context of Amour qui a le pouoir/Faus samblant m'a deceu/Vidi Dominum’, Early Music History, 10 (1997), 1–14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Bent, Margaret, ‘Deception, Exegesis, and Sounding Number in Machuat's Motet 15’, Early Music History, 10 (1997), 15–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Zayaruznaya, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 193–203.
11 Boethius, Consolatio Philosophiae [shorthand citation, i.e. book and chapter/metrum/prosa], quoted from The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. V.E. Watts, rev. edn (New York, 1999), 105.
12 Zayaruznaya labels six crossings in her chart (‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 188), excluding what I label as Crossing no. 5. Presumably this is because the voices are hocketing and occasionally are un-crossed within the hocket. I have included it because, in general, the motetus is above the triplum.
13 Translations by Colleen Donagher in Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 313–14. I have attempted to lay out Donagher's translations side by side to show a line to line translation.
14 For better contextual and syntactic understanding, I have used dashed boxes in Figure 1 to show the continuation of a word that begins in a crossed position or that completes the phrase. I use Schrade's edition in Figure 1. Leo Schrade, ed., Guillaume de Machaut: Oeuvres completes, 2 vols., Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 2–3. (Monaco 1956; reprint in 5 vols., 1977), 151–3. Schrade's edition does contain many errors, but after a thorough investigation of the manuscripts, very few of these affected my analysis – see note 17 for one exception – so I have chosen to use this edition for the example because of its wider accessibility.
15 I use the term ‘measure’ here as a more appropriate term for the fourteenth century, when music was written without bar lines, to mean a breve unit but retain the standard convention of prefixing bar numbers with b./bb. in referring to the modern edition.
16 Zayaruznaya, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 185–91.
17 MS C differs significantly from both the Schrade and the Ludwig editions, notating that the triplum on the word ‘mais’ begins on an a descending to a d. See Ludwig, Friedrich, ed., Guillaume de Machaut: Musikalische Werke, Vol. 3: Motetten, Publikationen älterer Musik 4/2 (Leipzig, 1929)Google Scholar. The voices would not be crossed at the beginning here if this reading was taken instead. MS A also differs at this point, with ‘mais’ following the pattern d–f–e and ‘pour’ g–f–d. In this case, the section would begin crossed, but not continue that way. Schrade matches what is notated in MS Vg and MS B, and agrees with the Ludwig edition. Therefore, though this is a point at which there is discrepancy in the manuscripts, several of them indicate voice-crossing at some point in this brief section, so I have included it.
18 I am thankful to my reviewer for pointing out this division in the text that very thoughtfully emphasises the two-faced qualities of Fortune.
19 Lawrence Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: Guide to Research (New York and London, 1995), 379. The motetus can be grouped as two 7/5 line couples into an AABBABA pattern, or if analysed in groups of four ABAB/BABA/ABBA/ABA’.
20 Göllner, Marie-Louise, ‘Interrelationships between Text and Music in the Refrain Forms of Guillaume de Machaut’, in Songs of the Dove and the Nightingale, ed. Hair, Greta Mary and Smith, Robyn E. (Basel, 1995), 105–23Google Scholar.
21 Bain, Jennifer, ‘Tonal Structure and the Melodic Role of Chromatic Inflections in the Music of Machaut’, Plainsong and Medieval Music, 14 (2005), 59–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bain's work defines a double-neighbour figure as a leap followed by a step in the opposite direction. Many of the cadences of the M13 triplum use these figures with the leap filled in. Despite the filled in leap, I have identified them as double-neighbour figures.
22 Bain, ‘Tonal Structure’, 77.
23 Margaret Bent has made similar interpretations of M15 on the basis of numerological symbolism in ‘Deception, Exegesis, and Sounding Number in Machaut's Motet 15’, esp. 15–20.
24 Augustine, Civitas Dei, 11.31; quoted from The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York, 1950), 375–6.
25 Leach, Elizabeth Eva, ‘Fortune's Demesne: The Interrelation of Text and Music in Machaut's “Il mest avis” (B22), “De Fortune” (B23) and Two Related Anonymous Balades’, Early Music History, 19 (2000), 47–79 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 Fuller, Sarah, ‘On Sonority in Fourteenth-Century Polyphony: Some Preliminary Reflections’, Journal of Music Theory, 30 (1986), 35–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, see especially pp. 54–5, 60. For her definition of directed progression, see Fuller, Sarah, ‘Tendencies and Resolutions: The Directed Progression in Ars Nova Music’, Journal of Music Theory, 36 (1992), 229–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
27 An alternative analysis includes cadences at bb. 58–60 and bb. 87–8, which employ imperfect intervals in these moments of repose. When they otherwise have cadential characteristics, which these do, Jennifer Bain accepts such imperfect consonances as cadences, acknowledging their dual purpose of repose and anticipation. See Bain, Jennifer, ‘Theorizing the Cadence in the Music of Machaut’, Journal of Music Theory, 47 (2003), 325–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Including these two cadences, the resulting rhyme scheme for the triplum is a/aa/aa/aab and the motetus is bb/aa. For the triplum especially, the alternating rhyme scheme of the poem is changed to the same, repeating rhyme, even more insistently, and the book-ending rhymes of the second two stanzas are completely absent.
28 Zayaruznaya, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 209–20.
29 Ibid ., 215.
30 Desmond, Karen, ‘Refusal, the Look of Love, and the Beastly Woman of Machaut's Balades 27 and 28’, Early Music History, 32 (2013), 71–118, at 101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 Ibid., 92–8 and 100–2.
32 I consulted Schrade, Leo, The Roman de Fauvel; The Works of Philipe de Vitry; French Cycles of the Ordinarium Missae, Polyphonic Music of the Fourteenth Century 1 (Monaco, 1956), 5–7 Google Scholar. Though criticisms have been raised regarding Schrade's rhythmic transcription choices in this edition, my investigation and interpretation of this piece do not rely on these decisions; thus this readily accessible edition fulfils my purposes.
33 Clark, ‘Prope est Ruina’, 133–6.
34 Venient falsi prophete in vestimentis ovium. I am grateful to Rebecca Maloy for providing these translations.
35 Lupi autem interius rapaces.
36 sed est hora/nisi pravi dirigantur/periculum est in mora.
37 Presidentes in thronis seculi sunt hodie dolus et rapina.
38 prope est ruina.
39 regnat domus repax.
40 Clark, ‘Prope est Ruina’, 133–5.
41 Boogaart, Jacques, ‘Encompassing Past and Present: Quotations and Their Function in Machaut's Motets’, Early Music History, 20 (2001), 1–86, at 32–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
42 Clark, ‘Prope est Ruina’, 138–9.
43 Brownlee, Kevin, ‘Authorial Self-representation in Fauvel’, in Fauvel Studies, ed. Bent, Margaret and Wathey, Andrew et al. (Oxford, 1998), 73–103 Google Scholar and Bent, Margaret and Wathey, Andrew, ‘Introduction’, in Fauvel Studies, ed. Bent, Margaret and Wathey, Andrew et al. (Oxford, 1998), 1–24 Google Scholar. See also Dillon, Emma, Medieval Music-Making and the ‘Roman de Fauvel’ (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar.
44 Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 137.
45 See Boogaart, Jacques, ‘ Folie couvient avoir: Citation and Transformation in Machaut's Musical Works – Gender Change and Transgression’, in Citation, Intertextuality and Memory in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Plumley, Yolanda, Di Bacco, Giuliano and Jossa, Stefano (Exeter, 2011), 15–40 Google Scholar.
46 Earp, Guillaume de Machaut: Guide to Research, 11, 207, 213, 217–18, 221, 226 n. 100, 227 n. 103, 231, 233, 260, 262–3, 270, 299–300, 306, 313–14.
47 Sheila Kate Maxwell, ‘Guillaume de Machaut and the mise en page’, Ph.D. diss., University of Glasgow (2009), 31–7 and 254–7.
48 Clark, Alice V., ‘Machaut Reading Machaut: Self-Borrowing and Reinterpretation in Motets 8 and 21’, in Citation and Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Musical Culture: Learning from the Learned, ed. Clark, Suzannah and Leach, Elizabeth Eva (Woodbridge, 2005), 94–101 Google Scholar.
49 Boogaart, ‘“O series summe rata”’, 130–47, 491–3.
50 Zayaruznaya, ‘“She Has a Wheel That Turns . . .”’, 192–4.
51 Ibid., 210–12.
52 Ibid., 215–17.
53 Desmond, ‘Refusal, the Look of Love, and the Beastly Woman’, 100. I am grateful to my anonymous reviewer for drawing additional attention to the different uses of ‘faus’ in M13/15.
54 See the highly useful chart in Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 80–1.
55 Brown, ‘Another Mirror of Lovers?’, 127–32.
56 Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 98–99, 154.
57 Ibid ., 154–62.
58 Brown, ‘Another Mirror of Lovers?’, 130.
59 Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 159.
60 Desmond, ‘Refusal, the Look of Love, and the Beastly Woman’, 113.
61 Robertson, Guillaume de Machaut and Reims, 99 and 152.
62 Boogaart, ‘Encompassing Past and Present’, 10.
63 Bent, Margaret, ‘Words and Music in M9’, Early Music, 31 (2003), 363–88, at 374–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
64 Huot, Sylvia, Allegorical Play in the Old French Motet: The Sacred and the Profane in Thirteenth-Century Polyphony (Stanford, 1997), 192 Google Scholar.
65 Clark, ‘Prope est Ruin’, 139.
66 Swift, Edgar and Kinney, Angela M., The Vulgate Bible: Douay-Rheims Translation, vol. 6 (Cambridge, MA, 2010), 60–1Google Scholar.