Guillaume de Machaut c. (1300 - 1387) French

A list of Machaut's compositions

Guillaume de Machaut is regarded by many musicologists as the greatest and most important composer of the 14th century.  Machaut is one of the earliest composers on whom substantial biographical information is available.  He has been called "the last great poet who was also a composer."  Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer.

Guillaume de Machaut's lyric output comprises around 400 poems, including 235 ballades, 76 rondeaux, 39 virelais, 24 lais, 10 complaintes, and 7 chansons royales, and Machaut did much to perfect and codify these fixed forms.

Machaut composed in a wide range of styles and forms.  He is a part of the musical movement known as the ars nova.  Machaut helped develop the motet and secular song forms (particularly the lai and the formes fixes: rondeau, virelai and ballade).  Machaut wrote the Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest known complete setting of the Ordinary of the Mass attributable to a single composer.  Some of his best-known rondeaus are "Ma fin est mon commencement" and "Rose, liz, printemps, verdure."


Machaut's music

Messe de Nostre Dame  (c. 1360)