D'après les ballades et rondeaux de Machaut

Vie amoureuse et joie à Dieu commant / I leave to God my life and joy

These fragments are taken from the ballades and rondeau of Guillaume de Machaut, a poet-composer working in the 1300s. While studying his work, I found myself continuously encountering moments where polyphonic threads intertwined with incredible lyricism, expression, and contrapuntal momentum. This collection of fragments represents these moments.

I do not see these fragments as arrangements, but rather as an unfolding of Machaut's tightly wound vertical voicings within the horizon of the piano; stretched over the range of the piano, allowing the harmonic structures to reinforce themselves.

demo recordings (digital keyboard)

Ballade 25: Honte, paour, doubtance de meffaire / Shame, fear, a dread of doing wrong

Ballade 6: Doulez amis, oy mon compleint / Sweet friend, hear my complaint

Rondeau 18: Puis qu’en oubli / Since I am Forgotten

Ballade 19: Amours me fuit desirer / Love makes me desire

Ballade 14: Dame, ne regardes pas / Lady, do not look