Machaut’s own virelais are very similar. Most of them are monophonic, presumably because of the three
main fixed forms the virelai was the one that continued most often to serve a traditional social function—
the carole or public (social) dance—and was most often performed by minstrels. Mensurally notated
monophonic dances and dance-songs proliferated in written sources throughout the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, beginning with the famous “Manuscrit du Roi,” which contains eight estampies
royals, long “stamping dances” in open-and-shut couplets, already mentioned in chapter 4 (and shown in
Fig. 4-8). That being the case, Lasse/Se j’aime/ POURQUOY might be looked upon through the other end of
the telescope, so to speak: not so much as a motet built over a virelai, but rather as a polyphonically
dressed-up virelai of an especially elaborate sort, in which the techniques of the motet serve to embellish
a courtly dance.
THE TOP-DOWN STYLE
Mixing the attributes of the motet and chanson genres was a highly unusual effect. The genres were more
typically thought of as distinct to the point of contrast—a contrast conditioned above all by their methods
of composition. To appreciate the difference, and the new way of composing Machaut seems to have
pioneered in his chansons, we will do best to begin with a monophonic composition—say, a typical
virelai.
One of Machaut’s best known virelais, because it is so frequently performed by modern minstrels in
“early music” ensembles, is the catchy Douce dame jolie (Ex. 9-4). It is a very early instance of a literate