![MEDIEVAL LONGING](https://cdn.magzter.com/1422886351/1719217052/articles/Ytxou-J6R1719233988852/MEDIEVAL-LONGING.jpg)
The dulcet vocal ensemble Chanticleer gave the songs an uncanny immediacy.
Guillaume de Machaut, the master poet-composer of fourteenth century France, served for many years as the canon of the great Gothic cathedral at Reims, where the kings of the realm were crowned. Machaut’s most famous creation, the Messe de Nostre Dame, has a singular place in musical history, because it is an early attempt at creating a comparably sublime edifice in sound—a six-movement work in four-part polyphony, lasting well over half an hour, in which austere, granitic harmony is set against delicate contrapuntal play and spiky rhythmic motion. This Mass is, in fact, the oldest extant piece of its type to have been attributed to a single composer. When, the other day, the San Francisco-based vocal ensemble Chanticleer sang it at Grace Cathedral, on Nob Hill, a suitable atmosphere of awe accumulated.
Yet the Mass is ultimately not Machaut’s most striking achievement. Superbly constructed as the score is, it does not mark a leap beyond other, anonymous masses of the period. Chanticleer augmented the movements of the Mass with a generous selection of Machaut’s works in secular forms, for which he wrote both texts and music: ballades, rondeaux, lais, virelays, and motets. In these, we are confronted with something more modern—and more elusive—than a monumental meditation on liturgical ritual. Machaut’s subtle, self-aware disquisitions on courtly love rely on the codes of a long-vanished society. Their music adheres to austere formulas. At the same time, they convey enough sensuous truth that, in the right hands, they speak with uncanny immediacy.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 01, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der July 01, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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ANTIHERO
“The Boys,” on Prime Video.
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HOW THE WEST WAS LONG
“Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter 1.”
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WHEEL OF FORTUNE
Taffy Brodesser-Akner weighs the cost of generational wealth.
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TWICE-TOLD TALES
The seditious writers who unravel their own stories.
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CASTING A LINE
The hard-bitten genius of Norman Maclean.
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TEARDROPS ON MY GUITAR
Four years ago, when Ivan Cornejo was a junior in high school, he had a meeting with his family to announce that he was dropping out. His parents were alarmed, of course, but his older sister, Pamela, had a more sympathetic reaction, because she also happened to be his manager, and she knew that he wasn’t bluffing when he said that he had to focus on his career.
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THE HADAL ZONE
Arwen Rasmont waits hours at Keflavík International for his flight; they call it as he leaves the men’s room. He walks past the mirrored wall and is assaulted, as usual, by his dead father’s handsome image: high-arched nose, yellow hair.
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OPENING THEORY
Ivan is standing on his own in the corner while the men from the chess club move the chairs and tables around.
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THE LAST RAVE
Remembering a summer of estrangement.
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КАНО
I’ve dated all kinds of women in my life,” the man said, “but I have to say I’ve never seen one as ugly as you.”