Thread: Guillaume Dufay

[Dufay (left) with Gilles Binchois (right.)]

Born: August 5, 1397 (?) - Beersel, in the vicinity of Brussels (or Hainault) , Belgium
Died: November 27, 1474 - Cambrai, Belgium

Guillaume [Guillermus, Guiliemus, Gugliemus, Wilhelmus] Dufay [Dudais, Duffai, Du Fay, Du Fayt] was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and influential composer in Europe in the mid-15th century, and can be considered as the founding member of the Netherlands school which dominated European music for the next 150 years.

Dufay's large musical output contained masterpieces of every genre, or style and type of music. Some types of his were:

dramatic cycles
cyclic masses
isorhythmic motets
simply ornamented hymns

Dufay wrote eighty-seven motets, which were sacred vocal compositions in sontrapuntal style, without instrumental accompaniment. He also wrote fifty-nine chansons, which were songs, (originally ballad-like) most being French love songs. Seven Italian chansons were written as well. He made seven complete masses as well as thirty-five mass selections.

Rob C. Wegman has noted that even in his 60s, Dufay was still carrying "every idiom to a plane of unprecedented artistic perfection." He deserves his place in music history.

One of my favorite motets by him, and the one that instantly got me hooked on his music, is his Apostolo Glorioso. It sounds quite different from most works I've heard from the period. It has a very mystical quality to it:



A few other favorites:

Ce Moys de May
Missa Sancti Jacobi
Supremum Est Mortalibus