Guillaume de Machaut was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the ars nova style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to separate the ars nova from the subsequent ars subtilior movement. Regarded as the most significant French composer and poet of the 14th century, he is often seen as the century's leading European composer.
Antoine Busnois was a French composer, singer and poet of early Renaissance music. Busnois and colleague Johannes Ockeghem were the leading European composers of the second half the 15th century, and central figures of the early Franco-Flemish School.
A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.
Clément Janequin was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous composers of popular chansons of the entire Renaissance, and along with Claudin de Sermisy, was hugely influential in the development of the Parisian chanson, especially the programmatic type. The wide spread of his fame was made possible by the concurrent development of music printing.
Solage, possibly Jean So(u)lage, was a French composer, and probably also a poet. He composed the most pieces in the Chantilly Codex, the principal source of music of the ars subtilior, the manneristic compositional school centered on Avignon at the end of the century.
Grimace was a French composer-poet in the ars nova style of late medieval music. Virtually nothing is known about Grimace's life other than speculative information based on the circumstances and content of his five surviving compositions of formes fixes; three ballades, a virelai and rondeau. His best known and most often performed work in modern-times is the virelai and proto-battaglia: A l’arme A l’arme.
Sagesse is a volume of French poetry by Paul Verlaine. First published in 1881, it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The subject matter of these poems deals with themes relating to maturing.
Thomas Herier, Erier, Erriers, or Erars was a Picard trouvère associated with the "Arras school".
Robert de Castel (d'Arras) was a trouvère active in and around Arras in the late thirteenth century. He is mentioned in the Congés of Baude Fastoul, written in 1272, which place him Arras at that date. He is the addressee of the poem Robert du Chastel, biaus sire, a jeu parti by another trouvère of Arras, Jehan Bretel, which was judged by another Artesian, Gaidifer d'Avion.
Gaidifer (Gadifer) d'Avion was an Artesian trouvère from Avion. He entered the Church and was associated with the poets of the so-called "School of Arras".
Guiot de Dijon was a Burgundian trouvère. The seventeen chansons ascribed to him in the standard listing of Raynaud-Spanke are found in fifteen chansonniers, some without attribution or with conflicting attributions where they occur in multiple sources.
Jehan Bretel (c.1210 – 1272) was a trouvère. Of his known oeuvre of probably 97 songs, 96 have survived. Judging by his contacts with other trouvères he was famous and popular. Seven works by other trouvères (Jehan de Grieviler, Jehan Erart, Jaques le Vinier, Colart le Boutellier, and Mahieu de Gant) are dedicated to Bretel and he was for a time the "Prince" of the Puy d'Arras.
Colart le Boutellier was a well-connected trouvère from Arras. There are no references to him independent of his own and others' songs, found in the chansonniers. One of these depicts the known coat-of-arms used by the Boutillier family, one of the petty noble clans of Arras, and assigns it to Colart. Another manuscript does not show any arms for Colart and it can be surmised that he was in fact a member of one of the middle-class families of the same name that could then be found in Arras. He may have been a relative of Robert le Boutellier, who judged a jeu parti between Thomas Herier and Gillebert de Berneville.
Guillaume le Vinier (c. 1190–1245) was a cleric and trouvère, one of the most prolific composers in the genre. He has left compositions in all the major subgenres of trouvère poetry: chansons d'amour, jeux-partis, a lai, a descort, a chanson de mal mariée and a ballade. He wrote Marian songs and even an imaginary dialogue with a nightingale. His work can be dated with some precision: the poem "En tous tens" is quoted in the Roman de la violette, which was written around 1225.
Don Quichotte à Dulcinée is a song cycle by Maurice Ravel based on the story of Don Quixote. It was first composed for voice and piano but later orchestrated. The songs are traditionally performed by a baritone or bass(-baritone). The cycle is made up of three independent pieces: Chanson Romanesque, Chanson épique, and Chanson à boire. The text was written by the librettist Paul Morand. It was composed between the years of 1932 and 1933.
The 1340s in music involved some events.
The Bayeux Manuscript is an illustrated manuscript comprising one hundred three songs, collected by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon at the beginning of the 16th century and composed in the late 15th century, that is a few decades after the end of the Hundred Years' War. It is stored at the Bibliothèque nationale de France with designation Fr. 9346.
