Messe De Notre Dame: Listening Reaction
Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, from which this "Kyrie" portion is extracted, is part of a contemporary author's creative interpretation of the liturgy of the Latin Catholic Mass. It was specifically composed for the Notre Dame Cathedral in France. It is a polyphonic piece, in contrast to the plainsong that was popular at the time, characteristic of Gregorian chant. Although it is confined to a conventional musical liturgical format, it makes use of creative, interwoven pieces of voice and musical composition and has a texture of many, rather than a singular, driven, lyrical impetus. In other words, its orchestration makes use of many different kinds of voices with different timers, and fills the space where the composition La Messe De Notre Dame was likely to have taken place with different sounds, probably resulting in different listeners hearing the mass differently, depending on where they were sitting in the cathedral. (Wulff, "Guillaume de Machaut," 2004)
Guillaume de Machaut's mass was one of the earliest polyphonic masses. It was probably composed in 1364. The composer was one of the earliest known users of syncopated rhythm, sacrificing unity of line and focus for a balance of different voices and musical interest. Polyphony is richer in sound than Gregorian plainchant and relies upon a more careful orchestration of harmony and melody, in its organization, form and dynamics. Although it retains the historical period's influence of stately reverence in its tempo, its instrumentation of vocal difference gives it an aesthetic value or richness rather than austerity that plainsong lacks. Aesthetically, to a listener today it lacks the 'medieval' quality of pure, univocal chant. Its crowded musical texture makes it difficult for a modern listener to extract literary meaning from the musical composition. Wulff, "Guillaume de Machaut," 2004)
Regardless, the mass still marks an important development in the evolution of musical harmonic structure, and introduced elements of creativity into the liturgical compositions for the church.
Works Cited
Wulff, John C. "Guillaume de Machaut." Early Music and Style WebPages. 2 Jan 2005. http://www.nvcc.edu/home/jwulff/machaut/Machaut.htm