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The Life and Work of Guillaume Dufay

A master of contrapuntal rhythm, Dufay's use of an harmonic bass under the tenor was essential to the evolution of choral part writing.

Guillaume Dufay (ca. 1400-1474) is commonly associated with the court at Burgundy. He was a prolific composer of Masses, Magnificants, motets and secular chansons. His career is one of the few that can be traced in any detail. Dufay was one of the most traveled musicians in Europe, and in the international world of music he was an honored figure. Yet his musical career begins and ends at Cambrai Cathedral. Dufay, was a master of contrapuntal rhythm, and his use of an harmonic bass under the tenor was essential to the evolution of choral part writing. Dufay contributed to the development of the cycle Mass which was in form comparable in length and musical weight to the Viennese symphony or an act of an opera, and Dufay appears to be the first one to incorporate folktunes into church music. No other composer of his period could rival Dufay's fame and fortune except perhaps Josquin des Pres. During the renaissance Dufays name was a household word, and he counted as his many patrons and pupils the most powerful kings and princes of Europe.

As a boy Dufay was recruited by the master of the choirsters at Cambrai Cathedral, where he probably came into contact with the composers Nicholas Grenon and Francois le Bertoul and may have heard Henry V chapel when he passed through Paris in1420. Dufays earliest dateable works are connected with two weddings within the family of the Maletestas.In 1427 he obtained a leave of absence from his deaconry at Cambrai to join the papal chapel in 1428, and stayed until 1433. In 1436 the Pope moved top Bologna with his chapel and promoted Dufay to several northern canonries including one at Cambrai. After that Dufay spent part of his time in the Savoy, and Martin le Franc pictured him at the Burgundian court in a poem in1437. Dufay also appears with the title "singer to the illustrious Duke of Burgundy".

Over the next years Dufay spent more of his time involved in the musical life of the Cathedral at Cambrai, yet in the international world of music he was now an honored figure, and in 1458 he was asked to adjudicate in a musical dispute in Besancon. Dufay was also greatly admired by the Medici family and Lorenzo had written a canzone which Dufay was requested to set. The composer died in1474 at Cambrai, and his will still exists. It lists many valuable gifts from European kings and princes to which he is known to have had direct contact, and bequeaths six books of music to his former pupil Charles of Burgundy. His will further sets forth in detail the musical arrangements that he desired for his funeral service, including a request that his motet of Ave regina caelorum be performed at the moment of his death, which proved impossible. The motet survives and contains the phrase: have mercy on your dying Dufay.

Dufay was trained in the tradition of the French gothic style and spent many of his formative years in Italy, where he must have learned to appreciate the complexities of late trecento music. Dufay was a master of contrapuntal rhythm, who preferred long regular phrases with relatively frequent cadences, in 6/4 meter. In 1433 Dufay composed the motet Supremum est mortaibus bonum for the reconciliation of Pope Eugenius IV and the Emperor Sigismund. In it he shows extensive use of fauxbourden, although his early fauxbourdens are far removed from the English faburden. Dufay use of a harmonic bass under the tenor was essential to the evolution of choral part writing for four balanced voices. A decade later, he was regularly using such a bass line, and the four voice texturehad become the rule.

In Dufays Mary Mass Ecc ancilla Domini all four voices play an essential part in the structure. Instead of the densely woven interlocking part-writing of the middle ages, Dufay used a fully choral style. The composer has reached a new stage in the art of composition. Dufay made little use of imitation, instead he linked the voices together by repeating little fragments of melody throughout the voices. A new awareness of controlled dissonance and a growing interest in the subtleties of spacing reflect the desire of Dufay and other gothic composers to give their music depth and perspective.

The Mass had replaced the motet as the main vehicle for religious music, and since the middle of the fourteenth century, composers like Machaut started grouping all five sections of the ordinary together in one setting. These groupings had little musical unity. The idea of using the same melody for each successive part of the ordinary was probably derived from the isorhythmic motet. Two forms of tenor-Mass developed. In one the tenor was treated in strict isorhythm, it kept exactly the same rhythm in all the movements. In the other, the tenor is treated isomelodically. Although the melody repeated in every movement it was subjected to varying rhythmic patterns each time it repeated. Dufay adopted both types, strict and free, and added his own device: the motto, a short phrase of two or more voices which recurs in the beginning of each section of the ordinary. In masses like Ecc ancilla Domini Dufay employs not one but two such mottos. Other cycles are based on secular songs like Dufays famous Mass on the tenor of his own song Se la face ay pale. The cycle Mass was in form comparable in length and musical weight to the Viennese symphony or an act of an opera.

Another trend that can be attributed to Dufay, is that it seems that he is the first composer to incorporate folktunes into church music. Among the many examples we find what is obviously a folktune used with the Latin trope as an insertion in the Amen of an early Credo, and Gloria of his.

Guillaume Dufay, had a distinguished musical career that begins and ends at Cambrai Cathedral. As a master of contrapuntal rhythms, he was a prolific composer of Masses, Magnificants, motets and secular chansons. Dufay was one of the most famous composers in Europe, and in the international world of music he was an honored figure. Dufays use of a harmonic bass under the tenor was essential to the evolution of choral part writing. Dufay also contributed to the development of the cycle Mass which was in form comparable in length and musical weight to the Viennese symphony or an act of an opera, and Dufay appears to be the first one to incorporate folktunes into church music. During the renaissance, Dufays name was a household word and many of his patrons and pupils were the most powerful kings and princes of Europe. Lorenzo de' Medici's moving sonnet on the death of a famous musician may quite possibly refer to Dufay.