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AGAINST NATURE: The Modernity of Ars Subtilior (Music of the 14th and 15th Centuries by Solage, Machaut, Senleches, Zacara da Teramo, Matteo da Perugia…) The polyphony of the 14th and early 15th centuries was considered monstrous and unnatural, transcending the natural order of things: it could therefore be both divine and subversive. Composers were very aware of the status of their music. “We are doing against nature,” wrote Guido de Lange in his song Or voit tout en aventure (Gold sees everything as an adventure): we live in an age of disorder, upheaval, and unexpected adventures… From the 13th and especially the 14th centuries onward, composers themselves began to conceptualize this supposed unnatural creation from nothing in their own polyphonic works, a kind of inverted or failed alchemy. Machaut composed a work that could be performed both forwards and backwards. Philippe de Vitry wrote self-referential works describing his own conception within the sung text. His students and disciples went even further, incorporating condemnations of corruption and decadence into the music and words of their own polyphonic compositions. From the 14th century onward, with the Ars Nova and the Ars Subtilior, this trend reached its peak, and composers directly integrated this critique of polyphony into their works, characterized by almost aberrant self-reference and mise en abyme. In this way, singers associated themselves with that which publicly and morally undermined their art. The works of Jacob Senleches, Mattheus de Sancto Johanne, Zacara da Teramo, and Solage prove that we have always been modern.