Machaut’s Musical Heritage

Machaut's musical heritage is uneven, in terms both of its sources and in the degree of continuity to which those sources seem to point. A good case can be made for acknowledging a greater continuity between Machaut's motets and his predecessors. In some cases, the Hoquetus David for example, Machaut's heritage serves as a point of reference in a conscious effort to revive the past. Nowhere does understanding Machaut's heritage more fraught than in the secular songs. This chapter shows that the highly variable degree to which Machaut can be considered an innovator, and - like many figures whose reputation survives from his own time into the present - it may well be that this eclectic, even opportunistic, approach to the music of his past may determine the position he holds today. Keywords: Hoquetus David ; Machaut; motets; musical heritage; polyphonic music; vernacular song

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