Ars Nova

Ars Nova is a name for fourteenth-century music, especially in France, in which singers could combine melodic lines with unusually flexible written rhythms. Rather than moving together as a block of chords, voices may carry different words and unfold at different speeds. A slow repeating pattern can support more active lines above it.

The repertoire includes sacred music and songs about courtly love. Some songs have a single melody; others bring several voices together in forms such as the ballade, rondeau and virelai. The interest comes from how rhythm, words and melody fit together. Modern ensembles make different choices about blend, pronunciation and ornament, so each recording also offers a particular interpretation of the surviving music.

Ars Nova belongs to the transformation of French-centred polyphony during the fourteenth century. Theorists including Philippe de Vitry and Johannes de Muris addressed rhythmic possibilities, while Vitry and Guillaume de Machaut became defining compositional figures. Machaut served aristocratic patrons and later organised his works in carefully prepared manuscripts at Reims. These sources preserve courtly songs, motets and the Mass setting now called Messe de Nostre Dame. He died in 1377, leaving an unusually substantial surviving body of music and poetry.

Modern performance continues to ask how the notation should become sound. Graindelavoix recorded the Mass in Antwerp in 2015, using individual vocal colours and ornamentation that have provoked contrasting critical reactions. The Orlando Consort’s Sovereign Beauty, released in 2017, presents a different focus through Machaut’s shorter poetic forms.