Dictionary of Music - Birding America

Mm. 1 An abbreviation for MINOR. 2 An abbreviationfor MAIN or MANO (“hand”).M. 1 An abbreviation for MAJOR. 2 An abbreviationfor MEDIANT.ma (mä) Italian: “but.” A word used in such musicalterms as ma non troppo (“but not too much”).MacDowell (mək dou′əl), Edward, 1860–1908.An American composer remembered principally forhis short piano compositions in romantic style. Ofteninspired by nature, MacDowell was at his best insuch short pieces as the collections WoodlandSketches (among them, “To a Wild Rose” and “To aWater Lily”) and Sea Pieces. MacDowell also wrotemany songs and a number of longer works, includingtwo piano concertos, several symphonic poems, andtwo suites. Although his musical style is that of nineteenth-centuryEuropean romanticism, MacDowelloften depicted in his music the natural beauty ofAmerica (for example, in New England Idyls) andoccasionally even used American Indian melodies(as in his Suite no. 2). In 1907 a summer colony forartists, composers, and writers, the MacDowellColony, was established in his honor at his formersummer home in Peterborough, New Hampshire.Machaut (mA shō′), Guillaume de (gē yōm′ də),c. 1300–1377. A French composer and poet whowas the most important French musician of the ARSNOVA. Machaut traveled widely for a time, finallysettling in Rheims, where he remained for the lastforty years of his life, serving as canon of the cathedral.Most of Machaut’s music was secular (nonreligious).He wrote songs, using the important forms ofhis time—ballade, rondeau, and virelai—as well asthe earlier lai. He also wrote motets, which arenotable for their isorhythmic features (the use of thesame rhythmic pattern for successive portions orrepetitions of a melody). His most important compositionis a Mass, the first polyphonic setting of theentire Ordinary of the Mass known to have beenwritten as a unit by one composer. Previously, polyphonicMasses consisted of sections contributed byvarious composers, often written over a long periodof time. Machaut’s Notre Dame Mass, one of thefinest compositions that survive from this period,consists of four movements based on chants of theOrdinary and set like motets, with highly independentpart-writing over a supporting isorhythmicstructure (see MOTET), and two movements in theolder CONDUCTUS style, that is, with note againstnote and all the parts largely in the same rhythm.madrigal 1 In Italy in the first half of the fourteenthcentury, a type of poem usually set to musicwith two voice-parts, the upper part being more elaboratelyornamented than the lower and both singingthe same text. The poem consists of two or three225