piece without it), became willy-nilly the most “decorative” one—at once liveliest in rhythm (replete with
hockets and syncopes) and most capricious in contour (leaping freely by sixths).
THE LUXURIANT STYLE
At their most luxuriant, Machaut’s textures could accommodate four voices: the “structural” cantus/tenor
pair, accompanied by both a triplum and a contratenor. This texture, which we have already observed in
Ex. 8-6, was in effect a blending of the traditional motet complement (which included a triplum) with the
newer cantilena complement (which included a contratenor). It was a rich all-purpose texture that could
be adapted either to motet or to chanson designs.
The rondeau Rose, liz (“The rose, the lily”) is found in all its composer-supervised manuscript
sources with a full four-part complement. Ex. 9-7 shows the opening of the piece, up to the first cadence.
Because the parts are still functionally differentiated within a structural hierarchy, there are four viable
performance options: take away the triplum and the remaining voices will produce a texture like that of
Ex. 9-6; take away the contratenor and the remaining texture will be like that of Ex. 9-5; take away the
tenor and the cantus can stand alone, as in Ex. 9-4.
EX. 9-7 Guillaume de Machaut, Rondeau no. 10, Rose, liz, printemps, mm. 1–11Note that the triplum and the contratenor behave similarly at the cadence. Both supply the “second
leading tone,” F#, each in its respective register, producing parallel octaves. (The same was true of the
cadences in the Machaut motet examined in the previous chapter.) The four-part texture is thus a
sonorously amplified—and functionally redundant—version of the three-part texture. A functionally
differentiated four-part harmony would not make its appearance for another century.