Aymi, dame de valour, virelai for solo voice

• Date: before 1340
• Composer: Guillaume de Machaut
• Period: Medieval (1-1449)

Review

Ay me! dame de valour is a monophonic song by the fourteenth-century French composer Guillaume de Machaut. It is an example of the genre known as the virelai, one of the fixed formes of the fourteenth century (the others were the ballade and the rondeau). Schrade catalogues this work as Virelai No. 3. This is a relatively early work of Machaut's, dating from the time of his patronage by John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia.

Machaut is known primarily as a composer of polyphonic music, particularly of the monumental Messe de Notre Dame. However, he also wrote a great deal of monophonic song, much of it rarely performed and researched. Most of his virelais and almost all his lais are monophonic as well as his sole surviving chanson royal and complainte. His monophonic settings tend to be conservative in style, as do his choice of genres (the lai, especially, was rarely composed in the fourteenth century, and Machaut wrote the last known examples of this genre). ~ David Cashman, Rovi

Albums with Complete Performances of the Work

Title	Date
Devotion	1998
French Music of the 14th Century: Machaut and the Following Generation
Guillaume De Machaut: Chansons
Machaut: Ay Mi! Lais et virelais	1997
Neo-Medieval: Medieval Improvisations For A Postmodern Age	1997
Pastourelle: The Art of Machaut and the Trouvêres	2002
The Spirits of England and France	1994
The Spirits of England and France, Vol. 1: Music of the Later Middle Ages for Court and Church	1994

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