Composing the Mass
Machaut based his Mass on Gregorian chant. This is not surprising, for to build newly-written polyphony on a foundation of plainsong was not only a common compositional process, it reflects the general medieval concern for authority. Where a fifteenth-century Mass would more than likely use a single chant or other piece of music as the basis of all movements, providing an additional layer of symbolic meaning, Machaut uses the appropriate chant for each section: a Kyrie chant for the Kyrie, a Gloria chant for the Gloria, and so on. Anne Walters Robertson has shown that the specific melodies Machaut uses are not only present in surviving manuscripts from Reims and the surrounding area, in versions very close to those Machaut uses, they are associated in those sources with the Virgin in the fourteenth century.
The Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est all present their chants clearly in the tenor voice, using a repeated rhythmic pattern of a sort commonly used in the motet. The Gloria and Credo use a different approach, with a through-composed musical setting that treats the chant source more freely. Here we will take use two movements to examine the compositional procedures that are used in Machaut’s setting. The Kyrie and Gloria each represent a distinct approach both to the borrowed material and to the four-part texture as a whole.
The Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite missa est all present their chants clearly in the tenor voice, using a repeated rhythmic pattern of a sort commonly used in the motet. The Gloria and Credo use a different approach, with a through-composed musical setting that treats the chant source more freely. Here we will take use two movements to examine the compositional procedures that are used in Machaut’s setting. The Kyrie and Gloria each represent a distinct approach both to the borrowed material and to the four-part texture as a whole.
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