REDEFINING (AND RE-REFINING) A GENRE

Chapter:

CHAPTER 9 Machaut and His Progeny

Source:

MUSIC FROM THE EARLIEST NOTATIONS TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

That reinvestment was accomplished not by a stylistic revival but a thorough stylistic renovation. Machaut was able to reelevate and recomplicate the style of courtly love poetry, even while retaining its more popular forms, because he possessed a polyphonic craft that went far beyond the attainments of any previous courtly or urban love-singer. Where Adam de la Halle’s polyphonic rondeaux were cast in as simple and straightforward a polyphonic texture as could be—that of the syllabic versus or conductus setting—Machaut’s were subtle, ornate, and full of a very recondite lyricism that made telling decorative use, as we have seen, of musica ficta “causa pulchritudinis.”

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 Machaut and His Progeny." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-009002.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 9 Machaut and His Progeny. In Oxford University Press, Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-009002.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 9 Machaut and His Progeny." In Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 15 Mar. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume1/actrade-9780195384819-div1-009002.xml