Guillaume de Machaut: Complete Recordings on Spotify

Notre-Dame de Reims (Our Lady of Rheims)

Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300 – 1377) was a Medieval French poet and composer. He is one of the earliest composers on whom significant biographical information is available.

According to Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, Machaut was "the last great poet who was also a composer". Well into the 15th century, Machaut's poetry was greatly admired and imitated by other poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer. - Wikipedia

Machaut is the first in the line of great composers; this playlist gathers all recordings of his works available on Spotify in one place. Machaut tracks from medieval music compilations (like Where Beauty Moves And Wit Delights) are put at the beginning. They are followed by albums feature only Machaut's works (loosely arranged by genre: Lais, Mass, Motets, etc.). The playlist ends with New York Polyphony's beautiful paraphrase of Ma fin est mon commencement (My end is my beginning) from 2012.

Get this collection in one Spotify playlist: Guillaume de Machaut: Complete Recordings on Spotify (415 tracks from more than 60 albums, total time: 26 hours). Ctrl (CMD) + G to browse in album view. More about Machaut on medieval.org, and more pictures of Reims Cathedral (where Machaut worked From 1338 until his death) here.

This brings the French Composer series to an end. Adieu.