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• Medieval Era
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• Poet

(Ge-yom’ da Ma-sho’) c. 1300–77 French Composer and Poet Machaut was the most important poet-composer of fourteenth-century France and had a wide and enduring influence. He was in constant demand by the greatest noble patrons of his day, and his music reflects this patronage. He was unusual, although probably not unique, among medieval writers in that he made an effort to collect his works – both poetic and musical – and six lavishly ...

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• Composer
• Medieval Era
• Personalities
• Poet

(Zhä-no’ de Les-koo-rel’) fl. early 14th century French poet and composer Very little is known about Jehannot de Lescurel; his works survive only in an appendix to the most important manuscript of the Roman de Fauvel. This constitutes a collection of some 32 monophonic songs, a polyphonic rondeau and two longer poems. The works are ordered alphabetically but the sequence, obviously incomplete, is cut off at the letter ‘G’. The songs form ...

• Classical
• Medieval Era
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• Poet

(Oz’-valt fun Vol’-ken-shtin) c. 1376–1445 South Tyrolean poet Oswald von Wolkenstein has been called the most important poet writing in German between Walther von der Vogelweide and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). He is known to have been a singer and was also very active in the political sphere. Well over 100 poems can be attributed to him, but it is not clear how many of their settings, both monophonic and polyphonic, ...

• Classical
• Classical Era
• Librettist
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• Poet

(Pi-et’-tro Met-ta-shta-syo) 1698–1782 Italian librettist and poet Metastasio was the leading Italian librettist of his era, and creator of the tradition of a particular kind of serious opera. He was born in Rome, worked initially there and in Venice, and settled in Vienna in 1730 as poet to the imperial Habsburg court. He wrote numerous texts for music, elegant and mellifluous in style, of which the most famous were his 27 for three-act ...

• Classical
• Composer
• Personalities
• Poet
• Renaissance

1567–1620 English poet and composer Campion first distinguished himself as a poet and poetic theorist. His treatise, Observations in the Art of English Poesie (1602), included controversial opinions regarding metre and rhyme, revealing the musical basis of his poetry. He published four books of lute-songs. Some are humanist experiments in setting classically accentuated poetry, but the best are light love lyrics set to simple, memorable tunes. Campion also contributed, as both poet ...