The French composer Guillaume de Machaut was the most prolific composer of his time, with surviving works encompassing many forms, the three formes fixes rondeaux, virelais, ballades, as well as motets, lais and a single representative of the complainte, chanson royale, double hocket and mass genres. Most of his extant output is secular music, a notable exception being the renowned Messe de Nostre Dame. His oeuvre as a whole represents an unprecedented volume of surviving music for a single mediaeval composer, largely in part due to his own efforts to preserve and curate manuscripts for his music. The dominant figure of the ars nova style in late medieval music, Machaut is regarded as the most significant French composer and poet of the 14th century[1][2] and often seen as the century's leading European composer.[3]
Since many titles are merely the first lines of the texts used, in different sources individual pieces may be referred to by slightly different titles. For example, R20 is known both as Douce dame and Douce dame tant qui vivray. Furthermore, some of Machaut's works (most notably the motets) employ simultaneous performance of several different texts. In such cases, the title of the work lists all texts used, starting from the top voice.
Machaut was the first composer to concentrate on self-anthologization of his works, supervising the creation of three complete-works manuscripts during his life. In the last manuscript, written c. 1370, the scribe wrote Vesci l'ordinance que G. de Machau wet qu'il ait en son livre—Here is the order that G. de Machaut wants his book to have.[4]
Works are organized by genre. The numbering scheme, from the classic edition of Machaut's works by Leo Schrade, does not represent chronology, since few of Machaut's works can be reliably dated.