MACHAUT’S MUSICAL MONUMENTS

SCHOLA ANTIQUA
MICHAEL ALAN ANDERSON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Friday, April 26, 7:30pm Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist (Cleveland)
Saturday, April 27, 7:30pm Basilica of the Sacred Heart (Notre Dame)
Sunday, April 28, 4pm Rockefeller Memorial Chapel (Chicago)**

**Introductory remarks: Anne Walters Robertson, Claire Dux Swift Distinguished Service Professor of Music
and the Humanities in the College (University of Chicago)

PROGRAM
Kyrie from the Mass for Our Lady
Gloria from the Mass for Our Lady
Motet: Fons totius superbie/O livoris feritas/ FERA PESSIMA
Credo from the Mass for Our Lady
Motet: Bone pastor Guillerme / Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR
Sanctus from the Mass for Our Lady
10-MINUTE PAUSE
Agnus Dei from the Mass for Our Lady
Ite Missa Est from the Mass for Our Lady
Rondeau: Ma fin est mon commencement
Virelai: Foy porter
Ballade: Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Virelai: Douce dame jolie
Rondeau: Rose, liz, printemps, verdure
 NOTES ON THE PROGRAM

Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-1377) is one of the fourteenth century’s most prolific composers. In
the company of Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio, and Chaucer, he also stands as one of that century’s most
important poets. Machaut seems to have helped his own legacy by carefully arranging his poetic and musical
works in manuscripts of only his contributions. He served the peripatetic court of Jean de Luxembourg, King
of Bohemia beginning in 1323 until his patron’s death in 1346. Other patrons included Charles II, King of
Navarre, Jean, Duke of Berry, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Pierre de Lusignan, King of Cyprus.
Machaut further held a number of prebends (clerical benefices) in several cities. In 1340, he began a residency
as a canon at Reims Cathedral, where he would remain until his death. His musical output, which spanned
several genres in both sacred and secular realms, played a decisive role in cultivating the musical language
inherited from early fourteenth-century ‘Ars nova’ traditions. This presentation provides a small glimpse of
the Machaut’s considerable musical yield.
The centerpiece of our program is the Messe de Nostre dame (Mass for Our Lady), probably composed in
the early 1360s. The four-part Mass unfolds six sections of the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus,
Agnus Dei, and even the rarely heard Ite Missa Est) and represents the earliest instance of the setting of the
Mass Ordinary that was both stylistically cohesive and conceived as a single unit. There were earlier votive
settings of sections the Mass Ordinary, but nothing approaching Machaut’s offering. The composer seems to
have written the Mass as part of an endowment to the cathedral, a memorial for his own soul and that of his
brother Jean, also a canon at Reims who died in 1372, five years before Guillaume.
Our program also includes two motets. Taking its name from the French word mot (‘word’), the
motet was the most important genre of choral music in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century France. They were
typically scored for three voices in the time of Machaut, and it was common for the upper two voices of a
motet to sing different texts at the same time above an extracted melody from a liturgical chant called a tenor.
The tenor provided a structural ground plan for the work but also became subject to repetition and
transformation. The texts of a motet’s upper voices during this time could be sacred or secular, even political
in nature, and examples in both Latin and the vernacular survive. The poetry of the first motet (Fons totius
superbie/O livoris feritas/FERA PESSIMA) highlights two of the deadly sins—pride and envy—and reminds
the listener of the underlying salvation narrative: Christ’s victory over Satan. The motet Bone pastor Guillerme /
Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR is topical in nature, written in honor of archbishop Guillaume de
Trie, a man notorious in Reims during the time of Machaut for both excommunicating one-third of the
canons in the cathedral chapter and forbidding the celebration of the Divine Office. The composer would
have no reason to honor such a man, and so it could be that this motet acts as a kind of vision of an ideal
archbishop, something to which Guillaume de Trie might aspire.
We conclude the program with a handful of Machaut’s songs. The composer wrote these songs to fit
standard poetic formal types (“fixed forms”) in circulation at that time. We will present examples of the
virelai, rondeau, and ballade. The last category was considered by the composer to be the most noble of the
song forms, and Machaut indeed wrote well over 200 ballades. All of these songs are composed with a catchy
melody that is sometimes harmonized with one or two voices. Both virelais that we will sing are
unaccompanied melodies, as was the case for more than three-quarters of Machaut’s 39 virelais. The two
rondeaus are quite distinct and deserve comment. The first (Ma fin est mon commencement) is ingeniously
constructed as a kind of musical palindrome. Its lowest voice (tenor) sings a retrograde of its own part in the
second section of the piece, while the two upper voices sing retrogrades of each other’s part at the song’s
halfway point. The final song Rose, liz, printemps, verdure is a blissful encomium to an unnamed lady of high
social standing with language that blurs with devotional poetry of the time. In each of the manuscripts in
which the song survives, Machaut calls for the luxuriant use of four parts in Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, making
it a particularly satisfying and grand conclusion to this program of his music.
 TRANSLATIONS OF THE MOTETS AND SONGS
Fons totius superbie/O livoris feritas/FERA PESSIMA
Triplum:
Fons totius superbie, Font of all pride,
Lucifer, et nequicie Lucifer, and all evil,
Qui, mirabili specie You who, with a marvelous beauty
Decoratus, Endowed,
Eras in summis locatus, Had been set on high,
Super thronos sublimatus, Raised above the thrones,
Draco ferus antiquatus You who the old fierce dragon
Qui dicere, Are called,
Ausus es sedem ponere You dared to set up your seat
Aquilone et gerere In the North and to conduct
Te similem in opere Yourself in your doings similarly
Altissimo. To the Most High:
Tuo sed est in proximo But soon was
Fastui ferocissimo Your most ferocious pride
A judice justissimo By the Most Just Judge
Obviatum. Resisted.
Tuum nam auffert primatum; For he took away your primacy;
Ad abyssos cito stratum You saw yourself, for your sin,
Te vidisti per peccatum To the abyss swiftly flung down
De supernis. From the heights.
Ymis nunc regnas infernis; Now you reign in the depths below
In speluncis et cavernis In caves and pits
Penis jaces et eternis You lie in punishments and eternal
Agonibus. Agonies.
Dolus et fraus in actibus Deceit and treachery [are] in your
Tuis et bonis omnibus Deeds, and with your darts
Obviare missilibus You strive to
Tu niteris; Resist all good [men].
Auges que nephas sceleris You augment that wicked crime
Adam penis in asperis That kept Adam in the harsh torments
Te fuit Stigos carceris. Of the Stygian dungeon.
Sed Maria But I pray that the Virgin Mary,
Virgo, que, plena gratia, Who, full of grace,
Sua per puerperia By her childbearing
Illum ab hac miseria Has freed him from this
Liberavit, Misery.
Precor elanguis tedia May both increase the sufferings
Augeat et supplicia And punishments of the serpent
Et nos ducat ad gaudia And lead us to joy,
Quos creavit. Whom she has created.
Motetus:
O livoris feritas, O savageness of envy,
Que superna rogitas You who seek the heights
Et jaces inferius! And lie in the depths!
Cur inter nos habitas? Why do you dwell among us?
Tua cum garrulitas While your unceasing speech
Nos affatur dulcius, Speaks to us the more sweetly,
Retro pungit sevius, It stings the more savagely from behind
Ut veneno scorpius: Like the scorpion with its poison:
Scariothis falsitas The treachery of Iscariot
Latitat interius. Lies hidden within.
Det mercedes Filius May the Son of God
Dei tibi debitas! Give you your just rewards.
Tenor:
Fera pessima. Most evil beast

Bone pastor Guillerme / Bone pastor, qui pastores / BONE PASTOR

Triplum:
Bone pastor Guillerme, Good shepherd Guillaume,
Pectus quidem inerme An unarmed breast certainly
Non est tibi datum; Was not given to you,
Favente sed Minerva But with the favor of Minerva
Virtutum est caterva It is strongly armed
Fortiter armatum. With a host of virtues.
Portas urbis et postes You guard the gates and doors
Tue munis, ne hostes Of your city, lest the enemy
Urbem populentur Devastate the city –
Mundus, demon et caro, The world, the devil, and the flesh –
Morsu quorum amaro By whose bitter bite
Plurimi mordentur. Many are wounded.
Mitra que caput cingit The mitre that surrounds your head
Bino cornu depingit Symbolizes the two testaments
Duo testamenta, With a twofold horn,
Que mitrifer habere Which the bearer of the mitre must have
Debet tanquam sincere As the ornaments
Mentis ornamenta. Of a pure mind.
Et quoniam imbutus And since you are imbued
Et totus involutus And totally covered
Es imprelibatis, With things unspoiled,
Ferre mitram est digna Worthy to bear the mitre
Tua cervix, ut signa Is your neck, so that the signs
Sint equa signatis. Are equal to the things signified.
Curam gerens populi, In caring for the people
Vis ut queant singuli You desire, in order that all should be able
Vagos proficere To make progress,
Prima parte baculi To draw in the wanderers
Attrahere; With the first part of your staff;
Parte quidem alia, And with the second part [of the staff],
Que est intermedia, Which is in the middle,
Morbidos regere; You know how to guide the stick;
Lentos parte tercia With the third part
Scis pungere. To spur on the slackards.
Oves predicamine You feed your sheep
Et cum conversamine With preaching
Pascis laudabili, And through praiseworthy conduct,
Demum erogamine And finally with
Sensibili. Perceptible payment.
Det post hec exilium And after this life
Huic rex actor omnium, May the King who is creator of us all
Qui parcit humili, Who has mercy on the humble,
Stabile dominium Grant him a stable dominion
Pro labili. In place of this transient one.

Motetus:
Bone pastor, qui pastores Good shepherd, who surpasses
Ceteros vincis per mores Other shepherds in morals
Et per genus And in family stock
Et per fructum studiorum And through the fruit of your studies,
Tolentem mentes ymorum Which carries the minds of those in the depths
Celo tenus, Right up to heaven,
O, Guillerme, te decenter O Guillaume, the King
Ornatum rex, qui potenter Who rules powerfully
Cuncta regit,
Sue domus ad decorem
Remensium in pastorem
Preelegit.
Elegit te, vas honestum,
Vas insigne,
De quo nichil sit egestum
Nisi digne.
Dedit te, vas speciale
Sibi regi;
Dedit te, vas generale
Suo gregi.
Tenor:
Bone pastor.
Rondeau: Ma fin est mon commencement
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin
Et teneure vraiement.
Ma fin est mon commencement.
Mes tiers chans trois fois seulement
Se retrograde et einsi fin.
Ma fin est mon commencement
Et mon commencement ma fin.
Virelai: Foy porter
Foy porter, honneur garder
Et pais querir, oubeir,
Doubter, servir et honnourer
Vous vueil jusques au morir,
Dame sans per.
Car tant vous aim, sans mentir,
Qu'on porroit avant tarir
La haute mer
Et ses ondes retenir
Que me peusse alentir de vous amer,
Sans fausser; car mi penser,
Mi souvenir, mi plaisir
Et me desir sont sans finer
En vous que ne puis guerpir n'entroublier.
Foy porter...
Il n’est joie ne joïr
N'autre bien qu'on puist sentir
N'imaginer
Qui ne me samble languir,
Quant vo douceur adoucir vuet mon amer.
Dont loer
Et aourer
Et vous cremir, tout souffrir,
Tout conjoïr, tout endurer
Vueil plus que je ne desir Guerredonner.
Foy porter...
Vous estes le vray saphir
Qui puet tous mes maus garir et terminer,
Esmeraude à resjoïr,
Rubis pour cuers esclarcir et conforter.
Vo parler, vo regarder,
Vo maintenir, font fuir et enhaïr et despiter
Tout vice et tout bien cherir et desirer.
Foy porter...
Over all
Has specially chosen you who are adorned
[To be] the glory of his house,
The shepherd of the Rémois.
He has chosen you, honorable vessel,
Distinguished vessel,
Let nothing be poured forth from it
Except [that which is] worthy.
He has given you a special vessel
To Himself, the King;
He has given you as a general vessel
To his flock.
Good shepherd.
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end
And truly [this] holds.
My end is my beginning.
My third part just three times only
Moves backwards and so ends.
My end is my beginning
And my beginning my end.
I want to stay faithful, preserve your honor,
seek peace, obey,
fear, serve, and honor
you until death,
O peerless Lady.
For so great is my love for you,
that one could sooner dry up
the deep sea
and hold back its waves
than I could constrain myself from loving you,
without falsehood; for my thoughts,
my memories, my wishes,
and my peace are perpetually in you,
whom I cannot abandon nor forget.
I want to stay faithful...
There is no joy nor welcome
nor any other good that one could experience
nor imagine,
which does not seem to me worthless,
whenever your sweetness wants to ease my bitterness of life
Thus I want to praise,
adore
and fear you, and suffer everything,
experience everything, endure everything
more than I desire any reward.
I want to stay faithful...
You are the true sapphire
that can heal and end all my suffering,
the emerald which brings rejoicing,
the ruby to illuminate and comfort the heart.
Your words, your countenance,
your comportment, make one flee, hate and detest
all vice, and instead cherish and desire all that is good.
I want to stay faithful...
Ballade: Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Biauté qui toutes autres pere
Envers moy diverse et estrange,
Douceur fine à mon goust amere,
Corps digne de toute loange,
Simple vis à cuer d'aïmant,
Regart pour tuer un amant,
Samblant de joie et response d'esmay
M'ont ad ce mis que pour amer morray.
Detri d'ottri que moult compere,
Bel Acueil qui de moy se vange
Amour marrastre et nompas mere,
Espoir qui de joie m'estrange,
Povre secours, desir ardant,
Triste penser, cuer souspirant,
Durté, desdaing, dangier et refus qu'ay
M'ont ad ce mis que pour amer morray.
Si vueil bien qu'à ma dame appere
Qu'elle ma joie en doleur change
Et que sa bele face clere
Me destruit, tant de meschief sen je
Et que gieu n'ay, revel ne chant,
N'einsi com je seuil plus ne chant,
Pour ce qu'Amour, mi oueil et son corps gay
M'ont à ce mis que pour amer morray.
Virelai: Douce dame jolie
Douce dame jolie,
Pour dieu ne pensés mie
Que nulle ait signorie
Seur moy fors vous seulement.
Qu'adès sans tricherie
Chierie
Vous ay et humblement
Tous les jours de ma vie
Servie
Sans villain pensement.
Hélas! et je mendie
D'esperance et d'aïe;
Dont ma joie est fenie,
Se pité ne vous en prent.
Douce dame jolie…
Mais vo douce maistrie
Maistrie
Mon cuer si durement
Qu'elle le contralie
Et lie
En amour tellement
Qu'il n'a de riens envie
Fors d'estre en vo baillie;
Et se ne li ottrie
Vos cuers nul aligement.
Douce dame jolie…
Et quant ma maladie
Garie
Ne sera nullement
Sans vous, douce anemie,
Qui lie
Estes de mon tourment,
Beauty which is the equal of all beauties,
haughty and distant towards me;
exquisite sweetness, bitter to my taste;
person worthy of all praise,
kindly face with heart of steel,
look that can kill a lover,
her joyful exterior and distressing reply
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
Delay in requiting, for which I pay dearly,
Fair Welcome which masks vindictiveness,
Love, not a kindly but an unnatural mother,
Hope which deprives me of joy,
lack of help, burning desire,
sad thoughts, sighing heart,
harshness, disdain, haughtiness and the refusal I receive
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
I wish to make it clear to my lady
that it is she who turns my joy to pain,
and that her fair radiant face
destroys me, such is the misfortune I suffer,
and that I enjoy no mirth, pleasure or music,
and can no longer sing as I used to,
because Love, my eyes and her fair self
have brought me to such a pass that I shall die of loving.
Fair sweet lady,
for God’s name do not think
that any mortal love has mastery over me,
I have love for you alone.
For always without deceit
I have cherished you,
and humbly
served you
all the days
of my life without any base thought.
Alas! I am bereft
of hope and help;
and so my joy is ended,
unless you pity me.
Fair sweet lady…
But your gentle mastery
masters
my heart so strictly
as to govern it
and bind it with love,
so much so
that it desires nothing
but to be in your power;
and your heart grants it
no possibility of turning away.
Fair sweet lady…
And since my sickness
will not be cured
in any way
save by you, sweet enemy,
who are glad
at my distress,
A jointes mains deprie then with hands clasped I pray
Vo cuer, puis qu'il m'oublie, that your heart, since it neglects me,
Que temprement m'ocie, may kill me soon,
Car trop langui longuement. for I have languished too long.
Douce dame jolie… Fair sweet Lady…

Rondeau: Rose, liz, printemps, verdure

Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, Rose, lily, spring, greenery,
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour. Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
Belle, passes en doucour. Beautiful lady, you surpass them in sweetness.
Et tous les biens de Nature And all the gifts of nature
Avez, dont je vous aour. You possess, for which I adore you.
Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, Rose, lily, spring, greenery.
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour; Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
Et quant toute creature And since beyond any creature’s
Seurmonte vostre valour. Your virtue excels,
Bien puis dire et par honnour: I must say in all honor:
Rose, liz, printemps, verdure, Rose, lily, spring, greenery,
Fleur, baume et tres douce odour. Flower, balm and sweetest fragrance
Belle, passes en doucour. Beautiful lady, you surpass them in sweetness.

Motet translations by Anna Kirkwood, Anne Walters Robertson, et al. Song translations by Stephen Haynes with emendations by
Daisy Delogu. Cover: Lady Nature introduces Meaning, Rhetoric, and Music to Guillaume de Machaut. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale
de France, fr. 1584 (MS A), fol. E (recto).

SINGERS
Soprano: Stephanie Sheffield
Alto: Tom Crawford
Tenor: Matthew Dean, Bill McDougall, Keith Murphy, Frank Villella
Bass: William Chin, Peter Olson

ABOUT SCHOLA ANTIQUA

Schola Antiqua is a Chicago-based professional vocal ensemble dedicated exclusively to the
performance of music before the year 1600. The group is the winner of the 2012 Noah Greenberg
Award from the American Musicological Society for outstanding contributions to historical performing
practices. An ensemble that executes the pre-modern repertory with “sensitivity and style” (Early Music
America), Schola Antiqua takes pride in providing the highest standards of research, performance, and
education involving many underserved repertories in the Western musical canon. Founded in 2000 under
the artistic leadership of Professor Calvin M. Bower from the University of Notre Dame, the ensemble
was Artist in Residence at the University of Chicago in 2006-2007. The ensemble has served in a similar
capacity for the Lumen Christi Institute since 2009. Schola Antiqua has recorded four CDs and is due to
release a fifth in 2013. Much of the music on their albums has never received a modern recording. The
group’s music has aired on the syndicated national broadcasts of With Heart and Voice, Millennium of Music,
and Harmonia and has received reviews in Early Music America, Fanfare, the Journal of Plainsong and Medieval
Music, and Notes (Music Library Association).

ABOUT THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Michael Alan Anderson, a founding member of Schola Antiqua, was named the ensemble’s
second Artistic Director in 2008. He is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the Eastman School of
Music (University of Rochester), where he specializes in late medieval and Renaissance sacred music.
Anderson received a Ph.D. in the History and Theory of Music at the University of Chicago in 2008, and
his book St. Anne in Renaissance Music: Devotion and Politics is forthcoming from Cambridge University
Press in 2013. He is the 2012 winner of the Deems Taylor Award given by the American Society for
Composers, Authors, and Publishers for an article on the late-medieval motet in the journal Early Music
History (2011). Other awards include the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend, the
Alvin H. Johnson American Musicological Society 50 Dissertation-Year Fellowship, the Noah
Greenberg Award (American Musicological Society), the Grace Frank Grant (Medieval Academy of
America), and the Whiting Foundation Fellowship (University of Chicago). He has published articles in
Early Music, Early Music History, Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music, and Studi musicali.

SPECIAL THANKS
For support of these concerts of Machaut’s music, Schola Antiqua wishes to thank specially the
Lumen Christi Institute, Thomas Levergood, Greg Heislman, Margot Fassler, Anne Walters Robertson,
Daisy Delogu, and Fr. Michael Driscoll. We are also indebted to Elizabeth Davenport, Eden Sabala, and
Julie Brubaker for their assistance and contributions. Additional grant funding has been provided by the
Sage Foundation.

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