Composer Guillaume Dufay (left) and Gilles Binchois (right), Martin le Franc, "Champion des Dames"

The Burgundian School was a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now northern and eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. The main names associated with this school are Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnois and (in England and her empire of that time in France) John Dunstable. The Burgundian School was the first phase of activity of the Franco-Flemish School, the central musical practice of the Renaissance in Europe.

Background[link]

In late Medieval and early Renaissance Europe, cultural centers tended to move from one place to another due to changing political stability and the presence of either the spiritual or temporal power, for instance the Pope, Anti-pope or the Holy Roman Emperor. In the 14th century, the main centers of musical activity were northern France, Avignon, and Italy, as represented by Guillaume de Machaut and the ars nova, the ars subtilior, and Landini respectively; Avignon had a brief but important cultural flowering because it was the location of the Papacy during the Western Schism. When France was ravaged by the Hundred Years' War (1337 – 1453), the cultural center migrated farther east, to towns in Burgundy and the Low Countries, known then collectively as the Netherlands.^[1]

During the reign of the House of Valois, Burgundy was the most powerful and stable political division in western Europe, and added, a bit at a time, Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. Especially during the reigns of Philip the Good (1419 – 1467) and Charles the Bold (1467 – 1477), this entire area, loosely known as Burgundy, was a center of musical creativity. Most of the musical activity did not take place in what is modern-day Burgundy, which has its capital in Dijon (even though the Dukes of Burgundy maintained an administrative center there). The main centers of music-making were Brussels, Bruges, Lille, and Arras, as well as smaller towns in that same general area.^[1]

Musicians from the region came to Burgundy to study and further their own careers as the reputation of the area spread. The Burgundian rulers were not merely patrons of the arts, but took an active part: Charles the Bold himself played the harp, and composed chansons and motets (although none have survived with reliable attribution). The worldly dukes also encouraged the composition of secular music to a degree seen only rarely before in European music history, a characteristic which itself defines the Burgundian epoch as a Renaissance phenomenon.^[2]

This migration of musical culture east from Paris to Burgundy also corresponds with the conventional (and by no means universally accepted) division of music history into Medieval and Renaissance; while Guillaume de Machaut is often considered to be one of the last Medieval composers, Dufay is often considered to be the first significant Renaissance composer.

Charles the Bold was killed in 1477 in the Battle of Nancy, during one of his attempts to add territory to his empire. After his death, music continued to flourish as before, but the region was split politically, with the duchy of Burgundy being absorbed into France, and most of the Low Countries becoming part of the holdings of the Spanish Habsburgs. Both the French court and the Habsburgs were patrons of music; however a French style began to diverge from that of the Low Countries, especially in secular music, and in the period after 1500.

Composers[link]

The history of Burgundian music began with the organization of the chapel in 1384; twenty years later, it rivaled the famous establishment at Avignon in splendor. Names associated with this early phase of Burgundian music include Johannes Tapissier and Nicolas Grenon, who carried the tradition across to the next phase of the chapel, when it was reorganized in 1415. Other early composers there were Hugo and Arnold de Lantins, both of whom Dufay later met in Italy.

Of all the names associated with the Burgundian School, the most famous was Guillaume Dufay, who was probably the most famous composer in Europe in the 15th century. He wrote music in many of the forms which were current, music which was melodic, singable and memorable (more than half of his sacred music consists of simple harmonizations of plainsong, for example). Contemporary with Dufay were composers such as Gilles Binchois, who was at the Burgundian court between approximately 1430 and 1460, and Hayne van Ghizeghem, a composer, singer and soldier who may have been killed in the last military campaign of Charles the Bold.

After the death of Dufay in 1474, the most prominent Burgundian musician was Antoine Busnois, who was also a prolific composer of chansons, and who possibly wrote the famous L'homme armé tune.

Musical style and forms[link]

Burgundian cadence on D; note the parallel fourths between upper voices.^[3]  Play (help·info)

Burgundian composers favored secular forms, at least while they worked in Burgundian lands; much sacred music survives, especially from those composers who spent time in Italy, for example in the papal choir. The most prominent secular forms used by the Burgundians were the four formes fixes (rondeau, ballade, virelai, and bergerette), all generically known as chansons. Of the four, the rondeau was by far the most popular; at any rate more rondeaux have survived than any other form. Most of the rondeaux were in three voices, and in French, though there are a few in other languages. In most of the rondeaux, the uppermost voice (the "superius") was texted, and the other voices were most likely played by instruments. The bergerette was developed by the Burgundians themselves; it was like a virelai, but shorter, having only one stanza.

Most of the composers also wrote sacred music in Latin; this was to remain true for the next several generations. They wrote both masses and motets, as well as cycles of Magnificats. During the period, the mass transformed from a group of individual sections written by different composers, often using a head-motif technique, to unified cycles based on a cantus firmus. Dufay, Binchois, Busnois, Reginald Liebert and others all wrote cyclic masses. One of the favorite tunes used as a cantus firmus was the renowned l'homme armé, which was set not only by the Burgundians but by composers of subsequent centuries; indeed it was commonest tune used as a basis for mass composition in all of music history, with more than forty surviving masses featuring the melody. David Fallows writes of it in the New Grove: "It is hard to think of any other melody in the history of music that has yielded so much music of the highest quality."^[4]

During the period the motet transformed from the isorhythmic model of the 14th century to the smoothly polyphonic, sectional composition seen in the work of the later Burgundians such as Busnois. In the motets, as well as the masses and other sacred music, a common musical technique employed was fauxbourdon, a harmonization of an existing chant in parallel 6-3 chords, occasionally ornamented to prevent monotony. Composition using fauxbourdon allowed sung text to be clearly understood, but yet avoided the plainness of simple chant. Burgundian motets tended to be in Latin, written for three voices with the top voice being the most important. An example of a Burgundian motet is Quam pulchra es, written by Dunstable in the early 15th century.

Instrumental music was also cultivated at the Burgundian courts, often for dancing. A peculiarity of the Burgundian instrumental style is that the dukes preferred music for loud instruments (trumpets, tambourins, shawms, bagpipes) and more of this survives than for other current instruments such as the lute or the harp. In contemporary practice, the loud instruments would usually play from an elevated location, such as a balcony, while the other instruments would play closer to the dancers.^[1]

Instrumental forms included the basse danse, or bassadanza, which was a ceremonial dance of a rather dignified character, and relatively slow tempo. Typically it was in a duple meter subdivided into threes (in modern notation, 6/8), and often the dance would be immediately followed by a quick dance, the tordion or pas de Brabant.^[5]

The Burgundian School was the first generation of what is sometimes known as the Netherlands School, several generations of composers spanning 150 years who composed in the polyphonic style associated with the mainstream of Renaissance practice. Later generations, which were no longer specifically associated with either the court or the region Burgundy but were interlinked by adjacent geography and by common musical practice, included such names as Johannes Ockeghem, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin des Prez, Adrian Willaert and Orlandus Lassus.

Manuscript sources[link]

There are approximately 65 manuscript sources which contain music by Burgundian composers. The most prominent of these include:

• Canonici Manuscript (containing music from around 1400 to 1440). This manuscript is at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England; it is named after a previous owner, Matteo Luigi Canonici, an 18th century Venetian Jesuit. It has 380 compositions in all, including works by 60 composers. Both sacred and secular music are well-represented in this collection.
• Laborde Chansonnier (containing music mainly composed during the reign of Charles the Bold, 1467–1477). It is named after the Marquis de Laborde, and is presently at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. It has 106 pieces of music in all.
• Mellon Chansonnier (containing music from approximately 1440 to 1477). It is named after Paul Mellon, who gave it to Yale University; currently it is in the Beinecke Library there. It has 57 compositions, and includes some non-Burgundian music as well (for example, works by contemporary English and Italian composers)
• Dijon Chansonnier (containing music from approximately 1470 to 1475). Some of the music is by composers not normally associated with the Burgundian school, such as Ockeghem, Loyset Compère, and Johannes Tinctoris. It is at the public library in Dijon, and contains 161 pieces of music in all.
• El Escorial Chansonnier (containing music from about 1430 to 1445). It is in the Biblioteca del Monasterio, El Escorial, V.III.24, and is commonly referred to as EscA. It contains a total of 62 compositions, only one of which is attributed (to Gilles Binchois), although many of the rest have been assigned to Binchois, Dunstaple, Dufay, and others, on stylistic grounds.^[6]

Burgundian Composers[link]

• Johannes Tapissier (c.1370–c.1410)
• Guillaume Dufay (?1397–1474)
• Jean Cousin (b. before 1425, d. after 1475)
• Hugo de Lantins (fl. c.1430)
• Arnold de Lantins (fl. c.1430)
• Johannes Legrant fl. c. 1420-1440
• Guillaume Legrant fl. 1405-1449
• Reginaldus Libert (fl. c.1425–1435)
• Gilles Binchois (c.1400–1460)
• Johannes Brassart (c.1400–1455)
• Hayne van Ghizeghem (c.1445–c.1480)
• Pierre Fontaine (c.1380 - c.1450)
• Nicolas Grenon (c. 1375–1456)
• Gilles Joye (1424/1425–1483)
• Robert Morton (c.1430–c.1479)
• Antoine Busnois (c.1430–1492)
• Guillaume le Rouge (fl. 1450–1465)
• Adrien Basin (fl. 1457–1476)
• Jacobus Vide (fl. 1405–1433)

References[link]

• Craig Wright, "Burgundy", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986. ISBN 0-89917-034-X
• Walter H. Kemp, Burgundian Court Song in the Time of Binchois: The Anonymous Chansons of El Escorial, MS V.III.24. Oxford, Clarendon Press. 1990.

Notes[link]

Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois

Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) (August 5, 1397?^[1] – November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer 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.

Life[link]

Early life[link]

From the evidence of his will, he was probably born in Beersel, in the vicinity of Brussels. Circumstantial evidence claims him to have been born the illegitimate child of an unknown priest and a woman named Marie Du Fayt,^[2] though this suggestion is as of yet unproven.^[3] Marie moved with her son to Cambrai early in his life, staying with a relative who was a canon of the cathedral there. Soon Dufay's musical gifts were noticed by the cathedral authorities, who evidently gave him a thorough training in music; he studied with Rogier de Hesdin during the summer of 1409, and he was listed as a choirboy in the cathedral from 1409 to 1412. During those years he studied with Nicolas Malin, and the authorities must have been impressed with the boy's gifts because they gave him his own copy of Villedieu’s Doctrinale in 1411, a highly unusual event for one so young. In June 1414, at the age of only 16, he had already been given a benefice as chaplain at St. Géry, immediately adjacent to Cambrai. Later that year he probably went to the Council of Konstanz, staying possibly until 1418, at which time he returned to Cambrai.

From Cambrai to Italy and Savoy[link]

From November 1418 to 1420 he was a subdeacon at Cambrai Cathedral. In 1420 he left Cambrai again, this time going to Rimini, and possibly Pesaro, where he worked for the Malatesta family. Although no records survive of his employment there, several compositions of his can be dated to this period; they contain references that make a residence in Italy reasonably certain. It was there that he met the composers Hugo and Arnold de Lantins, who were among the musicians of the Malatesta household. In 1424 Dufay again returned to Cambrai, this time because of the illness and subsequent death of the relative with whom his mother was staying. By 1426, however, he had gone back to Italy, this time to Bologna, where he entered the service of Cardinal Louis Aleman, the papal legate. While in Bologna he became a deacon, and by 1428 he was a priest. Cardinal Aleman was driven from Bologna by the rival Canedoli family in 1428, and Dufay also left at this time, going to Rome. He became a member of the Papal Choir, serving first Pope Martin V, and then after the death of Pope Martin in 1431, Pope Eugene IV. In 1434 he was appointed maistre de chappelle in Savoy, where he served Duke Amédée VIII; evidently he left Rome because of a crisis in the finances of the papal choir, and to escape the turbulence and uncertainty during the struggle between the papacy and the Council of Basel. Yet in 1435 he was again in the service of the papal chapel, but this time it was in Florence — Pope Eugene having been driven from Rome in 1434 by the establishment of an insurrectionary republic there, sympathetic to the Council of Basel and the Conciliar movement. In 1436 Dufay composed the festive motet Nuper rosarum flores, one of his most famous compositions, which was sung at the consecration of the cathedral in Florence, while Eugene lived in exile in the city at the nearby church of Santa Maria Novella.

During this period Dufay also began his long association with the Este family in Ferrara, some of the most important musical patrons of the Renaissance, and with which he probably had become acquainted during the days of his association with the Malatesta family; Rimini and Ferrara are not only geographically close, but the two families were related by marriage, and Dufay composed at least one ballade for Niccolò III, Marquis of Ferrara. In 1437 Dufay visited the town. When Niccolò died in 1441, the next Marquis maintained the contact with Dufay, and not only continued financial support for the composer but copied and distributed some of his music.

Return to Cambrai[link]

The struggle between the papacy and the Council of Basel continued through the 1430s, and evidently Dufay realised that his own position might be threatened by the spreading conflict, especially since Pope Eugene was deposed in 1439 by the Council and replaced by Duke Amédée of Savoy himself, as Pope (Antipope) Felix V. At this time Dufay returned to his homeland, arriving in Cambrai by December of that year. In order to be a canon at Cambrai, he needed a law degree, which he obtained in 1437; he may have studied at University of Turin in 1436. One of the first documents mentioning him in Cambrai is dated December 27, 1440, when he received a delivery of 36 lots of wine for the feast of St. John the Evangelist.

Dufay was to remain in Cambrai through the 1440s, and during this time he was also in the service of the Duke of Burgundy. While in Cambrai he collaborated with Nicolas Grenon on a complete revision of the liturgical musical collection of the cathedral, which included writing an extensive collection of polyphonic music for services. In addition to his musical work, he was active in the general administration of the cathedral. In 1444 his mother Marie died, and was buried in the cathedral; and in 1445 Dufay moved into the house of the previous canon, which was to remain his primary residence for the rest of his life.

Travels to Savoy and Italy[link]

After the abdication of the last antipope (Felix V) in 1449, his own former employer Duke Amédée VIII of Savoy, the struggle between different factions within the Church began to heal, and Dufay once again left Cambrai for points south. He went to Turin in 1450, shortly before the death of Duke Amédée, but returned to Cambrai later that year; and in 1452 he went back to Savoy yet again. This time he did not return to Cambrai for six years, and during that time he attempted to find either a benefice or an employment which would allow him to stay in Italy. Numerous compositions, including one of the four Lamentationes that he composed on the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, his famous mass based on Se la face ay pale, as well as a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici, survive from this period: but as he was unable to find a satisfactory position for his retirement, he returned north in 1458. While in Savoy he served more-or-less officially as choirmaster for Louis, Duke of Savoy, but he was more likely in a ceremonial role, since the records of the chapel never mention him.

Final years in Cambrai[link]

When he returned to Cambrai for his final years, he was appointed canon of the cathedral. He was now the most renowned composer in Europe.^[4] Once again he established close ties to the court of Burgundy, and continued to compose music for them; in addition he received many visitors, including Busnois, Ockeghem, Tinctoris, and Loyset Compère, all of whom were decisive in the development of the polyphonic style of the next generation. During this period he probably wrote his mass based on L'homme armé, as well as the chanson on the same song; the latter composition may have been inspired by Philip the Good's call for a new crusade against the Turks, who had recently captured Constantinople. He also wrote a Requiem mass around 1460, which is lost.

After an illness of several weeks, Dufay died on November 27, 1474. He had requested that his motet Ave regina celorum be sung for him as he died, with pleas for mercy interpolated between verses of the antiphon, but time was insufficient for this to be arranged. Dufay was buried in the chapel of St. Etienne in the cathedral of Cambrai; his portrait was carved onto his tombstone. After the destruction of the cathedral the tombstone was lost, but it was found in 1859 (it was being used to cover a well), and is now in the Palais des Beaux Arts museum in Lille.

Music and influence[link]

Dufay was among the most influential composers of the 15th century, and his music was copied, distributed and sung everywhere that polyphony had taken root. Almost all composers of the succeeding generations absorbed some elements of his style. The wide distribution of his music is all the more impressive considering that he died several decades before the availability of music printing.

Dufay wrote in most of the common forms of the day, including masses, motets, Magnificats, hymns, simple chant settings in fauxbourdon, and antiphons within the area of sacred music, and rondeaux, ballades, virelais and a few other chanson types within the realm of secular music. None of his surviving music is specifically instrumental, although instruments were certainly used for some of his secular music, especially for the lower parts; all of his sacred music is vocal. Instruments may have been used to reinforce the voices in actual performance for almost any portion of his output. In his lifetime, Dufay wrote seven complete masses, 28 individual Mass movements, 15 settings of chant used in Mass Propers, three Magnificats, two Benedicamus Domino settings, 15 antiphon settings (6 are Marian antiphons), 27 hymns, 22 motets (13 are isorhythmic) and 87 chansons. Assigning works to Dufay based on alleged stylistic similarities has been a favorite pastime of musicologists for at least a hundred years, judging from the copious literature on the subject.

Masses[link]

Motets[link]

Chant settings and fauxbourdon[link]

Many of Dufay's compositions were simple settings of chant, obviously designed for liturgical use, likely as substitutes for the unadorned chant, and can be seen as chant harmonizations. Often the harmonization used a technique of parallel writing known as fauxbourdon, as in the following example, a setting of the Marian antiphon Ave maris stella:

The beginning of Dufay's setting of Ave maris stella, in fauxbourdon. The top line is a paraphrase of the chant; the middle line, designated "fauxbourdon",(not written) follows the top line but exactly a perfect fourth below. The bottom line is often, but not always, a sixth below the top line; it is embellished, and reaches cadences on the octave.

Dufay may have been the first composer to use the term fauxbourdon to describe this style, which was prominent in 15th century liturgical music, especially that of the Burgundian school.

Secular music[link]

Most of Dufay's secular songs follow the formes fixes (rondeau, ballade, and virelai), which dominated secular European music of the 14th and 15th centuries. He also wrote a handful of Italian ballate, almost certainly while he was in Italy. As is the case with his motets, many of the songs were written for specific occasions, and many are datable, thus supplying useful biographical information.

Most of his songs are for three voices, using a texture dominated by the highest voice; the other two voices, unsupplied with text, were likely played by instruments. Occasionally Dufay used four voices, but in a number of these songs the fourth voice was supplied by a later, usually anonymous, composer. Typically he used the rondeau form when writing love songs. His latest secular songs show influence from Busnois and Ockeghem, and the rhythmic and melodic differentiation between the voices is less; as in the work of other composers of the mid-15th century, he was beginning to tend towards the smooth polyphony which was to become the predominant style fifty years later.

A typical ballade is Resvellies vous et faites chiere lye, which was written in 1423 for the marriage of Carlo Malatesta and Vittoria di Lorenzo Colonna^[5] (Carlo was a son of Malatesta dei Sonetti, Lord of Pesaro. Vittoria was the niece of Pope Martin V).^[6] The musical form is aabC for each stanza, with C being the refrain. The musical setting emphasizes passages in the text which specifically refer to the couple being married.

Writings on music theory[link]

Two written works by Dufay have been documented, but neither has survived. A note in the margin in a manuscript held in the Biblioteca Nazionale Palatina in Parma refers to a Musica which he wrote; no copy of the work itself has been found. Nineteenth-century musicologist François-Joseph Fétis claimed to have seen a sixteenth-century copy of a Tractatus de musica mensurata et de proportionibus by Dufay, last seen in a bookshop in London in 1824. The contents of neither work are known.^[7]

Influence[link]

Dufay was one of the last composers to make use of medieval techniques such as isorhythm,^[8] but one of the first to use the harmonies, phrasing and expressive melodies characteristic of the early Renaissance.^[9] His compositions within the larger genres (masses, motets and chansons) are mostly similar to each other; his renown is largely due to what was perceived as his perfect control of the forms in which he worked, as well as his gift for memorable and singable melody. During the 15th century he was universally regarded as the greatest composer of the time, and that belief has largely persisted to the present day.

The early music ensemble Dufay Collective is named for the composer.

Sound samples[link]

	Se la face ay pale Hear a performance of Dufay's celebrated ballade Se la face ay pale performed by ASTERIA
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

• Ecclesie Militantis performed by Blue Heron Renaissance Choir
• Rite Majorem performed by Blue Heron Renaissance Choir

References[link]

• David Fallows, "Dufay", revised edition. London, J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.: 1987. ISBN 0-460-02493-0
• Massimo Mila: "Guillaume Dufay", ed. Simone Monge, Torino, Einaudi Editore, 1997, ISBN 88-06-14672-6
• Massimo Mila: "Guillaume Dufay", Torino, G. Giappichelli Editore, 1972–73, 2 voll.
• Charles Hamm, "Guillaume Dufay", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Mark Lindley and Graeme Boone, "Euphony in Dufay. Harmonic 3rds and 6ths with explicit sharps in the early songs", in the 2004 Jahrbuch des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung, Berlin
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Alejandro Planchart: "Guillaume Du Fay", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 17, 2005), (subscription access)
• Harold Gleason and Warren Becker, Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana. Frangipani Press, 1986. ISBN 0-89917-034-X
• Guillaume Dufay, Opera omnia (collected works in six volumes), ed. Heinrich Besseler with revisions by David Fallows. Corpus mensurabilis musicae CMM 1, American Institute of Musicology, 1951-1995. Further info and sample pages
• Craig Wright, Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions. Journal of the American Musicological Society, XXVIII (I975)
• F. Alberto Gallo, tr. Karen Eales, Music of the Middle Ages (II). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1977 (original Italian edition) and 1985 (English). ISBN 0-521-28483-X
• E. Dartus, Un grand musicien cambrésien - Guillaume Du Fay. Préface de Norbert Dufourcq. Extrait du tome XCIV des Mémoires de la Société d'Émulation de Cambrai. Cambrai, 1974
• Van den Borren (I), Guillaume Du Fay, son importance .... Mémoires de l'Académie royale de Belgique, t. II, fasc. 2, 1926
• Van den Borren (II), Guillaume Du Fay, centre de rayonnement... Bulletin de l'Institut historique belge de Rome, fasc. XX. Bruxelles, Rome, 1939
• J. Chailley, Histoire musicale du Moyen Age. Paris, P. U. F.,1950
• S. Baldi, Introduction to Il Conto dell'esecuzione del testamento e l'Inventario dei beni di Guillaume Dufay, Miscellanea di Studi 6, a cura di Alberto Basso, Torino, Centro Studi Piemontesi - Istituto per i Beni Musicali in Piemonte, 2006, 47-134.
• S. Baldi, Guillaume Du Fay a Pinerolo, Bollettino della Società Storica Pinerolese, 25 (2008), 15-31 [with abstract in English].
• E. Gasparini, Tra musica e architettura. Il Nuper rosarum flores di Dufay e la brunelleschiana cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore, «Musica Realtà», 88 (2009).

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Hear The Hilliard Ensemble perform Dufay's Moribus et genere; Vergene bella and Lamentatio sanctae matris ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae in London, 25 September 2010
• Free scores by Guillaume Dufay in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free access to high-resolution images of manuscripts containing works by du Fay from Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Free pdfs of new Du Fay edition by Alejandro Planchart downloadble from Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
• Free scores by Guillaume Dufay in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Ave Regina Caelorum, the score at the classicaland.com
• Free scores by Guillaume Dufay at the International Music Score Library Project

Hayne van Ghizeghem (c. 1445–1476–1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance Burgundian School.

While many of his works have survived, little is known about his life. He was probably born in Gijzegem (near Ghent, in modern Belgium). His musical talent must have been noticed early by Charles, Count of Charolais (later to become Charles the Bold) because there is a record of his being personally assigned to a teacher by him; in 1467 he is shown in the Burgundian employment records as being a singer. In addition, he was named along with Adrien Basin and Antoine Busnois as "chantre et valet de chambre" to Charles, indicating the special regard in which he was held.

In addition to serving as a singer and composer, he evidently served as a soldier as well, for there is a record of purchase of military equipment for him, prior to the campaign against Liège by Charles. Charles took his musicians along with him on his campaigns, because he loved music as much as war, and insisted on entertainment; however Hayne was the only one of his famous musicians known to be also outfitted as a soldier. He is known to have been at the Siege of Beauvais in 1472, where Charles was decisively repulsed by the French, and Hayne was long presumed by scholars to have been killed in that battle. However, recent research into his surviving compositions indicates that some may have been produced after 1472, especially because they seem to show stylistic development beyond the ones that can be definitively dated to 1472 or before.^[1] Current scholarship suggests he may have survived the siege, and gone to work at the court of France. That such a distinguished singer and composer worked for France's bitter rival would have been an offense easy to forgive, for Burgundian musicians of the time were highly prized.

Hayne is principally known as a composer of chansons, and most of these are rondeaux. Two in particular—Allez regrets, and De tous biens plaine—were so famous in late 15th century Europe that they appeared in 25 separate sources, many dating from before the invention of printing, and they were used as source material for many later compositions by other composers. Almost all of his works are for three voices; they are simple and clear in texture, in the typical manner of the Burgundian school; and the melodic voice is the highest.

Eleven pieces can be definitively attributed to Hayne, though numerous similar works classified as "anonymous" may actually be compositions of his. The entire collection has been edited and published in Corpus mensurabilis musicae, vol. lxxiv (1977), by B. Hudson.^[1]

Notes[link]

References and further reading[link]

• Louise Litterick: "Hayne van Ghizeghem", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Litterick, Louise. Hayne van Ghizeghem. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/book/omo_gmo. Retrieved 29 October 2010.  (Subscription required)
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4

External links[link]

• Free scores by Hayne van Ghizeghem in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)

Manuscript of Omnium bonorum plena, a motet by Compère, and possibly his earliest surviving work; the exact date is uncertain, but it was possibly written for the dedication of Cambrai Cathedral on 2 July 1472.

Loyset Compère (c. 1445 – 16 August 1518) was a French composer of the Renaissance. Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians to bring the light Italianate Renaissance style to France.

Life[link]

His exact place of birth is not known, but documents of the time assign him to a family from the province of Artois (in modern France), and suggest he may have been born in Hainaut (in modern Belgium). At least one source from Milan indicates he described himself as coming from Arras, also in Artois. Both the date and probable place of birth are extremely close to those of Josquin des Prez; indeed the area around the current French-Belgian border produced an astonishing number of excellent composers in the 15th and 16th centuries, composers whose fame spread throughout Europe. Often these composers are known as the Franco-Flemish, or as the Dutch School.

In the 1470s Compère worked as a singer in Milan at the chapel of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, during the time that composers such as Johannes Martini and Gaspar van Weerbeke were also singing there. The chapel choir in the early 1470s grew into one of the largest and most famous singing ensembles in Europe. After the murder of the duke in 1476, Compère appears to have been "laid off" from the chapel, and he may have returned to France at this time. Sometime during the next ten years he began to work at the French court, and he accompanied Charles VIII on his invasion of Italy in 1494 (in what capacity is not known). He was in Rome in early 1495 during the occupation of the city by Charles and his army.

Next he had a series of church positions. By 1498 Compère was at Cambrai, and from 1500 to around 1504 he was at Douai; his final appointment was at a church in Saint-Quentin. Throughout this time he seems to have been in part-time service to the French court, as evidenced by his many compositions for official and ceremonial occasions. He died at Saint-Quentin.

Works[link]

Unlike his contemporaries, Compère seems to have written few masses (at least very few survive). By temperament he seems to have been a miniaturist, and his most popular and numerous works were in the shorter forms of the day—primarily chansons and motets. Two stylistic trends are evident in his music: the style of the Burgundian School, which he seems to have learned in his early career before coming to Italy, and the lighter style of the Italian composers current at the time, who were writing frottolas (the light and popular predecessor to the madrigal). Compère had a gift for melody, and many of his chansons became popular; later composers used several as cantus firmi for masses. Occasionally he seems to have given himself a formidable technical challenge and set out to solve it, such as writing quodlibets (an example is Au travail suis, which combines no less than six different tunes written to the same text by different composers).

Compère wrote several works in a unique form, sometimes called a free motet, which combines some of the light elegance of the Italian popular song of the time with the contrapuntal technique of the Netherlanders. Some mix texts from different sources, for instance a rather paradoxical Sile fragor which combines a supplication to the Virgin Mary with a drinking song dedicated to Bacchus. His choice of secular texts tended towards the irreverent and suggestive.

His chansons are his most characteristic compositions, and many scholars of Renaissance music consider them to be his best work. They are for three or four voices, and are in three general categories: Italianate, light works for four a cappella voices, very much like frottolas, with text set syllabically and often homophonically, and having frequent cadences; three-voice works in the Burgundian style, rather like the music of Dufay; and three-voice motet-chansons, which resemble the medieval motet more than anything else. In these works the lowest voice usually sings a slow-moving cantus firmus with a Latin text, usually from chant, while the upper voices sing more animated parts, in French, on a secular text.

Many of Compère's compositions were printed by Ottaviano Petrucci in Venice, and disseminated widely; obviously their availability contributed to their popularity. Compère was one of the first composers to benefit from the new technology of printing, which had a profound impact on the spread of the Franco-Flemish musical style throughout Europe.

Compère also wrote several settings of the Magnificat (the hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary, from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke), as well as numerous short motets.

Works list[link]

Masses and mass fragments[link]

1. Missa alles regretz;
2. Missa de tous bien plaine;
3. Missa l'homme armé;
4. Kyrie et Gloria sine nomine;
5. Credo 'Mon pére';
6. Credo sine nomine.

Motet cycles (substitution masses)[link]

These are cycles of motets, in which each motet is to be sung in place of a section of the mass ordinary or one of the Proper chants. In the list, the motet is given along with the name of the Proper chant or mass ordinary section:

1. Ave Domine Jesu Christe (Missa de D.N.J.C). Ave Domine Jesu Christe (Introit); Ave Domine Jesu Christe (Gloria); Ave Domine Jesu Christe, (Credo); Ave Domine Jesu Christe (Offertory); Salve, salvator mundi (Sanctus); Adoramus te, Christe (Elevation); Parce, Domine (Agnus dei); Da pacem, Domine (Deo Gratias).

2. Hodie nobis de virgine(Missa in Nativitate Deus Noster Jesu Christe). Hodie nobis de Virgine (Introit); Beata Dei Genetrix Maria (Gloria); Hodie nobis Christus natus est (Credo); Genuit puerpera Regem (Offertory); Verbum caro factum est (Sanctus); Memento, salutis auctor (Elevation); Quem vidistis, pastores (Agnus dei); O admirabile commercium (Deo Gratias).

3. Missa Galeazescha (Missa de Beata Maria Virgine); Ave virgo gloriosa (Introit); Ave, salus infirmorum (Gloria); Ave, decus Virginale (Credo); Ave, sponsa verbi summi (Offertorii); O Maria (Sanctus); Adoramus te, Christe (Elevation); Salve, mater salvatoris (Agnus dei); Virginis Mariae laudes (Deo Gratias).

Magnificats[link]

1. Magnificat I toni;
2. Magnificat IV toni (Esurientes only);
3. Magnificat VI toni (I);
4. Magnificat VI toni (II);
5. Magnificat VII toni;
6. Magnificat VIII toni (Esurientes only).

Motets[link]

1. Ad honorum tuum Christe;
2. Asperges me Domine;
3. Ave Maria, gratia plena;
4. Crux triumphans;
5. Gaude prole regia / Sancta Catharina (1501);
6. O admirabile commercium;
7. Officium de cruce (In nomine Jesu);
8. O genetrix gloriosa;
9. Omnium bonorum plena (before 1474, possibly for the dedication of Cambrai Cathedral on 5 July 1472);
10. Paranymphus salutat virginem;
11. Profitentes unitatem;
12. Propter gravamen;
13. Quis numerare queat / Da pacem (probably composed either on the occasion of the Peace of Etaples, November 3, 1492, or for the treaty between Pope Alexander VI and Charles VIII on January 15, 1495)
14. Sile fragor;
15. Sola caret monstris / Fera pessima (1507);
16. Virgo caelesti.

Motets-Chansons[link]

1. Le corps / Corpusque meum;
2. Male bouche / Circumdederunt me;
3. Plaine d'ennuy / Anima mea;
4. Tant ay d'ennuy / O vos omnes (=O devotz cueurs /O vos omnes).

Chansons à trois voix[link]

1. A qui diraige ma pensée;
2. Au travail suis;
3. Beaulté d' amours;
4. Bergeronette savoysienne;
5. Chanter ne puis;
6. Des trois la plus;
7. Dictes moy toutes;
8. Discant adieu a madame (I);
9. En attendant;
10. Faisons boutons (Text: Jean II);
11. Guerisses moy;
12. La saison en est;
13. Le grant dèsir d'aymer;
14. Le renvoy;
15. Mes pensées;
16. Ne doibt on prendre (poem by John II, Duke of Bourbon (contrafactum on the piece by Costanzo Festa on the poem Venite amanti by Poliziano));
17. Ne vous hastez pas (=Adieu a madame (II).);
18. Pensant au bien;
19. Pleut or a Dieu;
20. Pour estre ou nombre;
21. Puis que si bien;
22. Reveille toy franc cueur;
23. Se j'ay parlé (texte: Henry Baude);
24. Se mieulx ne vient (adaptation d'une chanson de P. Convert);
25. Se pis ne vient;
26. Seray je vostre mieulx amée (not present in the complete works of Compère in Fallow's edition)
27. Sourdes regrets;
28. Tant ha bon oeul;
29. Tout mal me vient;
30. Va-t-en regret (poem by John II, Duke of Bourbon);
31. Venes regrets;
32. Vive le noble roy de France;
33. Vous me faittes morir d'envie (poem by John II, Duke of Bourbon).

Chansons[link]

1. Alons fere nos barbes (possibly apocryphal);
2. De les mon getes = Voles oir une chanson);
3. Et dont revenes-vous;
4. Gentil patron;
5. J'ay un syon sur la porte;
6. Je suis amie d'un fourrier;
7. L'aultre jour me chevauchoye;
8. Mon pére m'a donné mari;
9. Nous sommes de l'ordre de St Babouin;
10. Royne du ciel;
11. Une plaisante fillette;
12. Un franc archier;
13. Vostre bargeronette.

Frottole[link]

1. Che fa la ramacina;
2. Scaramella fa la galla.

Attributed or doubtful works[link]

1. Ave regina, cælorum (anonymous, but attributed to Compère);
2. Cayphas (attributed to both Johannes Martini and Compère);
3. Lourdault lourdault garde que tu feras (attributed to both Compère and Ninot le Petit; scholarly consensus currently favoring Compère);
4. Mais que ce fust (attributed to both Compère and Pietrequin Bonnel);
5. O post partum munda (anonymous, attributed to Compère);
6. Sanctus - O sapientia (doubtful due to stylistic reasons);
7. Se non dormi dona (anonymous, attributed to Compère);
8. Se (Si) vous voulez que je vous face (anonymous but in Compère's style);
9. Vray dieu quel payne (multiple attributions, including Gaspar van Weerbeke, Jean Japart, and Matthaeus Pipelare).

Media[link]

	Venite amanti insieme Loyset Compere: Nous sommes de l'ordre de St Babouin (1.5 Mb) Plaine d’ennuy – Anima mea noicon By Loyset Compère, performed by Capilla Flamenca
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Recording[link]

• 2002 - Prioris: Requiem. Eufoda 1349. Contains a recording of O vos omnes by Loyset Compère.
• 2003 - Canticum Canticorum. In Praise of Love: The Song of Songs in the Renaissance. Capilla Flamenca. Eufoda 1359. Contains a recording of Plaine d’ennuy – Anima mea by Loyset Compère
• Désir D'aymer. Love Lyrics Around 1500: From Flanders To Italy, Capilla Flamenca, 2007 (Eufoda 1369). Contains recordings of Le grant désir, Lourdault lourdault and Nous sommes de l'ordre de Saynt Babuyn.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Loyset Compère

• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Article "Loyset Compère," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2

External links[link]

• Free scores by Loyset Compère in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• O bone Jesu: sheet music transcription by Alessandro Simonetto
• Free scores by Loyset Compère in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)

Binchois (right), with Guillaume Dufay

Gilles de Binche (called Binchois), also known as Gilles de Bins (ca. 1400 – 20 September 1460), was a Franco-Flemish composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian School, and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century. While often ranked behind his contemporaries Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple, at least by contemporary scholars, his influence was arguably greater than either, since his works were cited, borrowed and used as source material more often than those by any other composer of the time.

Life[link]

"Timotheus" by van Eyck. According to Irwin Panofsky it is Gilles Binchois' portrait

Binchois was probably from Mons, the son of Jean and Johanna de Binche, who may have been from the nearby town of Binche. His father was a councillor to Duke Guillaume IV of Hainault, and also had a position in a church in Mons. Nothing is known about Gilles until 1419, when he became organist at the church of Ste. Waudru in Mons. In 1423 went to live in Lille. Around this time he may have been a soldier in the service of the Burgundians, or perhaps the English Earl of Suffolk, as indicated by a line in the memorial motet written on his death by Ockeghem.

Sometime near the end of the 1420s he joined the court chapel of Burgundy, and by the time of his motet Nove cantum melodie (1431) he was evidently a singer there, since the text of the motet itself lists all 19 singers.

He retired to Soignies, evidently with a substantial pension for his long years of excellent service to the Burgundian court.

Music and influence[link]

Binchois is often considered to be the finest melodist of the 15th century, writing carefully shaped lines which are easy to sing, and utterly memorable. His tunes appeared in copies decades after his death, and were often used as sources for mass composition by later composers. Most of his music, even his sacred music, is simple and clear in outline, sometimes even ascetic; a greater contrast between Binchois and the extreme complexity of the ars subtilior of the previous century would be hard to imagine. Most of his secular songs are rondeaux, which became the most common song form during the century. Binchois, however, rarely wrote in strophic form, but instead shaped his melody independently of the verse's rhyme scheme.

Binchois wrote music for the court, secular songs of love and chivalry, music that was expected by the Dukes of Burgundy and that was evidently loved by them.

References[link]

• David Fallows, "Gilles Binchois," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• "Binchois Studies", Edited by Andrew Kirkman and Dennis Slavin. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2000.

External links[link]

• Biography and related information about his music
• Classical Composers Database: Binchois' entry
• Biographical information
• Free scores by Gilles Binchois in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)