Du Fay [Dufay; Du Fayt], Guillaume

(b Beersel, ?5 Aug 1397; d Cambrai, 27 Nov 1474). French composer and theorist. He was acknowledged by his contemporaries as the leading composer of his day. He held positions in many of the musical centres of Europe and his music was copied and performed virtually everywhere that polyphony was practised.

1. Life.

2. Posthumous reputation.

3. Works: general.

4. Chant settings.

5. Cantilena settings.

6. Motets.

7. Music for the Mass.

8. Plainchant melodies.

9. Songs.

10. Lost works.

11. Problems of attribution.

12. Sources.

13. Editions.

V.htm - S29431

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALEJANDRO ENRIQUE PLANCHART

Du Fay, Guillaume

1. Life.

According to the executors of Du Fay’s will, his ‘homeland’ was the town of Bersele [Beersel] near Brussels (although see Haggh, 1997, for a different interpretation). His date of birth has been postulated by Planchart (EMH, 1988; 1995) as 5 August 1397; this date is based on the year of his ordination (late 1427) and his years as a chorister at Cambrai Cathedral (1409–12), and events connected with the establishment of his obit. His original patronymic was Du Fayt; he apparently altered the spelling to Du Fay during his years in Italy. The family name (Du Fay as well as Du Fayt), universally spelt as two words in all 14th- and 15th-century documents traceable directly to bearers of the name, was not common in Cambrai: the largest concentration is found in documents from the area of Valenciennes. Du Fay was born the illegitimate son of a single woman, Marie Du Fayt, and a priest whose name has not come down to us.

The earliest mention of the composer comes from the years 1409 to 1412, where he is listed as ‘Willemet’ and later ‘Willermus Du Fayt’. His teachers at Cambrai during those years included Rogier de Hesdin, who taught him for 11 weeks in the early summer of 1409, Nicolas Malin, magister puerorum at the cathedral from 1409 to 1412, and perhaps Richard Loqueville, magister puerorum from 1413 until his death in 1418. Du Fay’s connection with Cambrai is probably due to his mother’s decision to live with a relative, Jehan Hubert, who became a residentiary canon of the cathedral in 1408 and whose first cousin, Jehanne Huberde, was in the care of Marie.

Du Fay apparently caught the attention of the cathedral authorities early on, for they made him an exceptional gift of a copy of Alexandre de Villedieu’s Doctrinale in 1411. His instruction in music and in grammar followed the rigid but practical curriculum common to most French cathedral schools in the late Middle Ages. By 24 June 1414 he had received a small benefice as chaplain of the Salve in the parish church of St Géry outside the walls of Cambrai, but by November of that year he was no longer at Cambrai. It is generally assumed that he went to the Council of Konstanz (1414–18), either in the retinue of Jehan de Lens, Bishop of Cambrai, or that of Pierre d’Ailly, who had been Bishop of Cambrai when Du Fay was a chorister. This assumption is supported by his later connection with Carlo Malatesta, whom the composer could only have met at Konstanz, and also by the nature and transmission of his earliest datable composition, a Sanctus related to a similar work by Loqueville, employing as a cantus firmus a troped chant that was used at Cambrai as part of the recently compiled Mass to pray for the end of the Schism.

By November 1418 Du Fay had returned to Cambrai and was already a subdeacon. He is mentioned as taking part in the services at St Géry until Ash Wednesday 1420. In the summer of that year he entered the service of Carlo Malatesta da Rimini. There is no direct documentary evidence of this, but a number of pieces were written for celebrations at Rimini in honour of Carlo’s relatives from Pesaro: the motet Vasilissa ergo gaude was written in honour of Cleofe Malatesta, bride of Theodore Palaiologos, before their wedding in 1421; the ballade Resvelliés vous was for the wedding of Carlo Malatesta da Pesaro to Vittoria Colonna in Rimini on 18 July 1423; and the rondeau Hé compaignons, which lists in its texts the names of no fewer than five of the musicians of Carlo Malatesta da Rimini, including Hugo and Arnold de Lantins. A mass Ordinary setting using material closely related to Resveillés vous must also date from these years.

Du Fay apparently returned north in 1424, most likely because Jehan Hubert, in whose house Marie Du Fayt was still living, became seriously ill. Hubert died on 24 December 1425; he left a substantial bequest to Marie, but there is no mention of Guillaume. No documentation concerning Du Fay’s whereabouts in 1424 and 1425 has come to light, but on the basis of two songs, Ce jour le doibt and Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys, it is assumed that he was a petit vicaire at Laon Cathedral. This view is supported by the fact that his first two benefices after the one in St Géry were a chaplaincy at the altar of St Fiacre in Laon (1429) and another at the altar of St John the Baptist in the parish church of Nouvion-le-Vineux (1430). The collation of this last benefice belonged to the community of chaplains in Laon. Early in 1426 Du Fay was recruited by Robert Auclou, secretary of Cardinal Louis Aleman, to join the cardinal’s familia in Bologna, where Aleman was papal legate. If Du Fay travelled to Bologna with Auclou he was in that city by late February 1426. Two litterae de fructibus from Aleman to St Géry, recorded in the chapter acts, attest Du Fay’s presence in Bologna. He is mentioned in the first, dated 12 April 1427, as a deacon, and in the second, dated 24 March 1428, as a priest.

Du Fay was in Bologna from February or March 1426 until August 1428, when the Canedoli faction in the city revolted and expelled Aleman and his court. A number of works can be placed in the Bologna years, notably the isorhythmic motets Rite maiorem Jacobum, written for Robert Auclou, and Apostolo glorioso, written for the rededication of a church of St Andrew in Patras, the last Latin diocese of Greece, whose bishop was Pandolfo Malatesta da Pesaro, as well as the song Mon chier amy, which, it has been suggested (in Fallows, 1982), was written as a song of condolence to Carlo Malatesta da Rimini on the death of his brother Pandolfo (d 3 October 1427). The Missa S Jacobi, which includes Propers as well as the Ordinary, has been placed in that period since it makes use of a rhymed alleluia, and there is evidence that the St James liturgy in the church of S Giacomo, Bologna, used one of the very rare versified Offices for that saint.

After leaving Bologna Du Fay went to Rome. He is listed as a member of the papal chapel in a payment of 4 December 1428, but a littera de fructibus dated 14 April 1429 states that he had been a papal chaplain for about six months, placing his arrival at the curia sometime in October 1428. He remained in the papal chapel until July 1433. During his years in Rome he, like other members of the chapel, sought to advance his clerical career by petitioning the pope for a number of benefices. Although he still only held the locally collated benefices of St Géry and Laon by 30 April 1430, by 18 September of that year he had obtained the parish church of St Pierre in Tournai.

Pope Martin V died on 20 February 1431 and Gabriele Condulmer was crowned Pope Eugenius IV on 11 March. Traditionally a new pope, in the weeks after his coronation, granted two expectatives to virtually every member of the curia as well as to thousands of petitioners in rolls submitted to him by the rulers and the universities. Very few of the original rolls survive and even the registers where such petitions were copied were apparently destroyed at the end of every papacy. Exceptionally, the roll containing the petitions of the chapel of Eugenius (I-Rvat C.S.703), dated 24 March 1431, has been preserved, which gave rise to the idea that Eugenius had taken a special interest in his singers. Du Fay’s two expectatives were to unnamed benefices; later documents identify them as canonicates at Tournai and at St Donatian, Bruges, although it was a long time before he took up either position.

In August 1431 he received a canonicate at Lausanne with the proviso that he resign the benefice at St Pierre, Tournai. On his resignation that post was requested by one Jacobus de Werp, whose letter is the sole source of the information that Du Fay was the son of a priest and a single woman. In the end the benefice was awarded instead to another papal singer, Gilles Laury. In 1433 Du Fay obtained for a short time the Benedictine priory of Cossonay, near Lausanne, which he resigned in exchange for another (unnamed) benefice. That same year he sought a renewal of his right to the two expectatives originally granted him by Eugenius IV in 1431.

Among the works written by Du Fay during his Roman years are the motets Ecclesie militantis, Balsamus et munda cera and Supremum est mortalibus. The first of these has been thought to be for the coronation of Eugenius IV, but neither text nor transmission support that assumption; the second was intended for the distribution of the wax Agnus Dei on 7 April 1431; and the third for the meeting of King Sigismund and the pope on 31 May 1433. The song Quel fronte signorille carries in its only source the annotation that it was written in Rome. Planchart (EMH, 1988) indicated that the Kyrie settings and the earliest hymns belong to the Roman years as well.

The pope’s finances were severely depleted as a result of the Council of Basle, which had opened during the year of Eugenius’s election, and it is clear that by 1433 the papal chapel was in crisis. Furthermore, Du Fay’s own ecclesiastical career seemed also to be stalled. Thus, when Duke Amédée VIII of Savoy sought to recruit him, the composer obtained a leave of absence from the pope. By August 1433 he had left Rome and on 1 February 1434 he is mentioned as maistre de chapelle in Savoy.

He probably arrived at the court sometime before that date, since a week after his arrival the festivities celebrating the wedding of the duke’s son, Louis, to Anne de Lusignan, princess of Cyprus, took place. Among the guests were the Duke of Burgundy with his entire retinue, including the Burgundian chapel, and it is likely that the Duke of Savoy had sought Du Fay in order to have in his own chapel a musician of the same calibre as those of the Duke of Burgundy. These festivities are the only documented time that Du Fay, Binchois, Martin le Franc and the blind vielle players of the Duchess of Burgundy were together (Wright, 1975), and therefore the famous reference to their meeting in Martin le Franc’s celebrated poem Le champion des dames can be traced to this occasion (see illustration). By July 1435 Du Fay had returned to the papal chapel, which was then in Florence.

Du Fay developed close ties to the Savoy family. Their musical establishment was not large, but it had a number of competent musicians among its chaplains and minstrels. The duke sought to provide Du Fay with some benefices and may have had a hand in his receiving those in Lausanne and Cossonay. By 29 July 1434 he had obtained the parish church of St Loup, Versoix, and the duke nominated him to a canonicate in Geneva. The collation of this benefice posed a problem in that the holder had to be a nobleman or a university graduate. Du Fay was a commoner and as late as November 1435 did not have a university degree, which rules out the possibility, discussed in earlier scholarship, that he obtained a law degree from Bologna or Rome. He had not collated the Geneva benefice by February 1436, and there is no evidence that he ever held it. In the meantime a semiprebend at Tournai was granted to him by the pope in early 1436 on the basis of the expectative of 1431, and on 9 September 1436 a new benefice, a canonicate at Tournai, was granted to him by a motu proprio of Eugenius IV.

Du Fay was received as a canon of Tournai, with Grenon acting as his representative, on 12 November 1436. The quick collation of the benefice could be due to his having been a local cleric and also to his having paved the way with the Cambrai authorities not long before his nomination. In August 1434 he had been granted leave from the court of Savoy to visit his mother in Cambrai, and in October of that year was among the distinguished visitors presented with gifts of bread and wine by the cathedral chapter. Shortly after his collation of the Cambrai canonicate he resigned his other benefice at Cambrai, that in St Géry, which he had held since the beginning of his career. Like the Geneva benefice, the canonicate at Cambrai was for a man with a law degree, and for the first time in a papal letter of 5 May 1437 Du Fay is mentioned as having a Bachelor of Law degree, which he must have obtained by papal fiat.

No works by Du Fay can be placed with certainty during his first sojourn at Savoy, although it has been suggested that the ballade Se la face ay pale comes from that period (Fallows, 1982). A number of important works date from his final stay in the papal chapel: these include Nuper rosarum flores, for the dedication of S Maria del Fiore, Florence, on 25 May 1436, the plainchant prose Nuper almos rose flores, for the same occasion (Wright, 1994), and the two other Florentine works, Mirandas parit and Salve flos Tusce. The song C’est bien raison, written for the Duke of Ferrara, may date from this period, but it may otherwise be an earlier work, from 1433 (Fallows, 1982; Lockwood).

Du Fay left the papal chapel at the end of May 1437 and returned to Savoy. In August of that year he was present at a meeting of the chapter in Lausanne, and in April 1438 the Cambrai chapter named him and Robert Auclou as delegates to the Council of Basle. Du Fay had also maintained good relations with the house of Burgundy, and in May 1438, probably under pressure from the new provost, Bishop Jean of Burgundy, the chapter of St Donatian in Bruges granted Du Fay the canonicate that Eugenius IV had requested for him in 1431.

Relations between Eugenius IV and the Council of Basle, which had been tense since the pope’s election, deteriorated rapidly between 1436 and 1439. On 18 September 1437 Eugenius attempted to dissolve the Council and open a new one in Bologna, and finally on 8 January 1438 a council sponsored by the pope opened in Ferrara. On 14 February the council fathers who remained in Basle elected Du Fay’s former patron, Cardinal Louis Aleman, president of the Council of Basle, and the following day Eugenius anathematized any decision by the Council. The impasse lasted over a year, but on 25 June 1439 the Council declared Eugenius deposed, and in November elected in his place Duke Amédée VIII of Savoy as Pope Felix V, thus creating a new schism. Du Fay, probably realizing that this conflict between his two principal patrons threatened his most important benefices in Cambrai and Bruges, left the court of Savoy even before the deposition of Eugenius IV. By 6 July 1439 Du Fay had entered the service of the Duke of Burgundy, which most likely means that he had reached northern France by then; the earliest record of his presence at Cambrai is his attendance at the general chapter of the cathedral on 9 December 1439.

Only one work can be securely dated to his second stay in Savoy, the motet Magnanime gentis, composed to celebrate the peace between Louis, Prince of Piedmont, and his brother Robert, Count of Geneva, signed at Berne on 3 May 1438. It has been proposed that the sequence Isti sunt due olive dates from this period, because it is based on a plainchant melody used only in the dioceses of Lausanne and Geneva (Planchart, EMH, 1988).

Du Fay remained at Cambrai from December 1439 to March 1450, constituting the longest period of residence in one place to this point in his life. A number of former members of the papal chapel were residents of Cambrai at this time, connected not only with the cathedral but also with the churches of St Géry and Ste Croix. Du Fay’s life in the 1440s is extensively documented in the cathedral records (see Wright, 1975, and Planchart, EMH, 1988, for the most important aspects of his work during this decade). He took an active part in the administration of the cathedral and, together with Nicolas Grenon and Symon Mellet, began an ambitious project to revise the liturgical books of the cathedral and to compose and assemble a large repertory of polyphonic music for use in the services. For a number of years, beginning in 1442, he was maître des petits vicaires. As the schism worsened he resigned his benefices in Versoix and Lausanne (1442). On 23 April 1444 his mother died and was buried in the cathedral, and on 14 August 1445 he moved to the house of the late canon Paul Beye, which he would retain until his death.

From the beginning of his reception as a canon of St Donatian he had trouble with the chapter over the collection of his revenues. The relationship worsened steadily despite the support of the Duke of Burgundy, and in October 1447 Du Fay resigned the canonicate at St Donatian and was installed as a canon of Ste Waudru in Mons, which he had visited, for the purpose of attending chapter meetings, during his time at Cambrai.

Much of what Du Fay wrote between 1439 and 1450 is lost, and what survives presents problems in terms of dating and transmission. Works from this period include two isorhythmic motets, Moribus et genere and Fulgens iubar, the first probably written in 1442 for the visit of Bishop Jean of Burgundy to Cambrai, and the second dated either 1442 (Fallows, 1982) or 1447 (Planchart, 1995). The song Seigneur Leon was probably written as a homage to Leonello d’Este on his accession as Marquis of Ferrara in 1442, and the Missa S Antonii de Padua, probably composed for the dedication of Donatello’s altar in the basilica of S Antonio in Padua on 13 June 1450 (Fallows, 1982), thus dates from the end of this period. Planchart (EMH, 1988; 1995) proposed that five Proper cycles, which he now accepts as authentic works, were composed as part of a set of six masses (one largely lost) for the weekly series of votive masses of the Order of the Golden Fleece established by the Duke of Burgundy at the Ste Chapelle in Dijon.

Planchart (EMH, 1988) also presented evidence that, in conjunction with the revision of the Cambrai liturgical books, Du Fay undertook the compilation and composition of an extensive set of polyphonic Ordinaries and Propers for the cathedral, copied into four volumes by Symon Mellet in 1449 (Wright, 1975), and which may have prompted a large payment from the chapter to Du Fay in 1452.

With the death of Pope Eugenius IV on 23 February 1447 and the election of Nicholas V the tension between Basle and Rome began to subside. On 7 April 1449 Felix V abdicated the schismatic papacy; the Council of Basle elected Nicholas V on 19 April and dissolved itself on 25 April. By May 1450 Du Fay had left Cambrai. He is known to have been in Turin from 26 May to 1 June 1450, and Fallows (1982) has proposed that he and his companions were on their way to Padua to sing his Missa S Antonii de Padua. By 15 December he was back in Cambrai, and on 4 March 1451 he attended the chapter meeting at Ste Waudru in Mons, at which time the Order of the Golden Fleece was having its annual meeting in that city. A letter from Louis of Savoy to the composer, dated 22 October (?1451), thanking him for a gift of cloth and referring to him as conseiller et maistre de chapelle, indicates that Du Fay had restored his connection with the court of Savoy. On 21 April 1452 the Cambrai chapter voted to pay him the equivalent of an entire year’s income from his prebend in recognition of his musical services. Shortly after that he left Cambrai and travelled to Savoy, where he was to spend the next six years.

In contrast with the earlier period in Cambrai, documentary information for Du Fay during his last sojourn in Savoy between 1452 and 1458 is very limited. The accounts of the chapel itself, which survive complete from 1449 to the end of the century (Bouquet), pass over him in total silence, but in an autograph quittance of 8 November 1455 Du Fay referred to himself as magister capellae of the duke. The accounts of the tesoreria generale note a gift of livery to him in January 1455 without mentioning his status, and a letter from Pope Nicholas V to Duke Louis of Savoy also refers to Du Fay as magister capellae, but it is clear that his position in the Savoy chapel was largely ceremonial and that he was viewed as private counsellor and a friend of the ducal family. A letter (dated by Fallows at 22 January 1456) from Du Fay to Lorenzo de’ Medici refers to a recent meeting with the court of France (including most likely Jean de Ockeghem), probably at the signing of the treaty of St Pourçain in 1455, and mentions his recent composition of some songs and four lamentations on the fall of Constantinople. Both Du Fay’s letter and that of Nicholas V indicate that the composer was apparently trying to find patronage or a benefice that would allow him to remain in Savoy or in Italy in his old age. In the event no substantial benefice was available and in September of 1458 he was in Besançon, on his journey back to Cambrai. By October 1458 he had arrived in Cambrai where, apart from a few short journeys largely connected with his canonicate at Ste Waudru, he was to spend the rest of his life.

Two works can be securely placed in this period in Savoy. The first is the lamentation for the fall of Constantinople, O tres piteulx/Omnes amici eius, and the other is the set of plainchants for a new feast, the ‘Recollection omnium festorum Beate Marie Virginis’, established by a foundation of Michel de Beringhen at Cambrai, and for which some of the texts were written by Gilles Carlier (Egidius Carlerius). However, a number of other works surely date from these years as well, most likely among them the Missa ‘Se la face ay pale’, and a number of chansons composed on texts by poets of the circle of Charles d’Orléans, who were present at St Pourçain in 1455. These songs include Malheureulx cueur and Les douleurs. His only late Italian song, Dona gentile, must also date from this period.

On his return to Cambrai Du Fay resumed his activities as a canon of the cathedral, becoming master of the petits vicaires in 1459, and was master of the petit coffre for a number of years. The cathedral accounts also indicate that he arranged for Symon Mellet to copy a considerable amount of polyphonic music for the cathedral. Furthermore, he renewed contact with Guillaume Modiator, called Malbecque, a colleague from the papal chapel, who was his receiver for a small benefice he had in Watiebraine (near Soignies), and perhaps through him came to know Johannes Regis, who succeeded Malbecque as Du Fay’s receiver when Malbecque died in 1465. In 1460 Du Fay took part in negotiations, ultimately unsuccessful, to appoint Regis magister puerorum at Cambrai.

The composer renewed his ties with the court of Burgundy. In 1457 Duke Philip ‘the Good’ requested permission from King Charles VII to recruit in France for a crusade; this may have been the occasion for the writing of the combinative chanson Il sera pour vous/L’homme armé, which mentions Simon le Breton, a Burgundian chaplain, who was listed as one of the chaplains to accompany the crusade. The work is preserved anonymously in the Mellon Chansonnier (US-NHu 91), and Planchart considers that the only composer close enough to Simon and whose style the chanson resembles is Du Fay (although see Morton, Robert for a different opinion). It may also be that the L’homme armé masses by both Du Fay and Ockeghem date from about this period.

During this last period in Cambrai Du Fay developed a close friendship with a fellow canon, Pierre de Ranchicourt, and when the latter was made Bishop of Arras in 1463 he retained rooms in Du Fay’s house and visited him often. Other visitors included Tinctoris (in 1460) and Ockeghem (in 1463). One of Du Fay’s motets was sung on the occasion of a visit by Charles the Bold to Cambrai in 1460; on a later visit, a tense meeting between the courts of Burgundy and France in 1468, Du Fay may have met with both Ockeghem and Busnoys. The dedication of Cambrai Cathedral in 1472 also brought a number of visitors to the city, probably including Compère, whose motet Omnium bonorum plena, which mentions Du Fay, was most likely composed for this occasion (Montagna). Planchart (1972, 1993) has argued that Du Fay’s Missa ‘Ave regina celorum’ was used for the dedication, even though it was probably originally intended as a mass for his own obit. In addition to the visitors, he kept in contact with Rome and Florence, as is shown by correspondence between him and Antonio Squarcialupi, and by documentary evidence that he sent music to Rome.

At the end of his career Du Fay had a relatively small number of benefices. He retained his canonicates at Cambrai and at Ste Waudru, as well as the parish church in Wattebraine. A canonicate at Condé was exchanged for a chaplaincy at Ohain (Belgium). In 1470 he bought some land in Beersel to provide an income for the establishment of his obit on 5 August, and in 1472 he supplemented the fund by the purchase of a smaller piece of land in Wodecq. He drew up his will in July 1474 and died on 24 November of that year. He had requested that as he lay dying the cathedral singers should sing his Ave regina celorum, but owing to the shortness of time this could not be carried out and the antiphon was sung at his obsequies instead. The will and its execution reveal that Du Fay died a wealthy man but with no close relatives. The year after his death Mellet copied a number of lamentations by Busnoys, Hemart and Ockeghem; these are lost, but were possibly composed in memory of Du Fay.

A number of works can be dated to this last period in Cambrai. There is strong evidence that the Missa ‘L’homme armé’ was written between 1459 and 1461. The Missa ‘Ecce ancilla’ was copied into the Cambrai choirbook in 1463 or 1464, the troped antiphon Ave regina celorum in 1464 or 1465, and the Missa ‘Ave regina celorum’, probably begun after Du Fay established his obit in 1470, was copied at Cambrai in 1473 or 1474. Fallows (1982) suggested that the rondeau En triumphant might be Du Fay’s response to the death of Binchois in 1460. Payments to Symon Mellet point to the existence of a number of late works that are now lost, including a Missa pro defunctis. Furthermore, there are references as late as 1507 to the existence of an Officium defunctorum that the Order of the Golden Fleece sang as a work of Du Fay (Prizer).

Two representations of Du Fay have survived: one is the well-known illumination in a copy of Martin le Franc’s Le champion des dames (F-Pn fr.12476), and the other is an image of the composer kneeling, carved on his funeral monument. The anonymous illuminator of Le champion des dames probably knew the composer, as his work has been identified by art historians in manuscripts copied for Cambrai, notably the breviary of Paul Beye. The right side of the composer’s face in the funeral monument has suffered some damage and abrasions, since the stone was used as a well cover after the destruction of the cathedral, but the images, although simplified likenesses, clearly depict the same person.

Du Fay, Guillaume

2. Posthumous reputation.

Throughout his life Du Fay was regarded as the leading composer of his age. Most of his career spanned a period of relative stylistic stability, and he was largely successful in incorporating new stylistic traits that came to the fore during his life, including the contenance angloise of the 1430s, the scoring and contrapuntal techniques found in the music of the master of the Missa ‘Caput’, and some of the elements of the music of Ockeghem and the young Busnoys. In doing so he achieved an extraordinary synthesis of the musical language of the mid-15th century while retaining a number of older traits, particularly in his use of chromaticism. The period immediately following his death, however, was one of relatively fast stylistic change and Du Fay’s music seems not to have made a large impact on that of composers of Josquin’s generation. Few works from that generation use Du Fay’s music as a source, a notable exception being Guillaume Faugues’s Missa ‘Le serviteur’, based on one of Du Fay’s late rondeaux. Equally telling is the virtual absence of Du Fay’s music from most sources produced around 1500, particularly the early printed anthologies of secular and sacred music. And yet there are documented performances of his work in Brussels as late as 1507 (Prizer), Cambrai in 1515 (Wright, 1978) and until 1535 (Planchart, 1995). In addition, theorists continued to cite several of his works until close to the middle of the 16th century. His name continued to be mentioned as one of the important composers of his age by theorists and historians until the beginning of the scholarly recovery of medieval music in the 19th century, although it is unlikely that most 17th- and 18th-century writers, with the possible exception of Padre G.B. Martini, knew a note of his music. In the same manner, works dealing with the history of the church in France continued to mention him as a churchman, with no awareness of his importance as a composer.

Du Fay, Guillaume

3. Works: general.

Du Fay cultivated virtually all genres of polyphonic music known in his day and his approach to composition varied slightly depending on the genre. His works include songs in the formes fixes, plainchant settings where the chant is paraphrased in the cantus or another of the upper voices, freely-composed settings (cantilenas) of liturgical, non-liturgical or ceremonial texts and cantus-firmus compositions including motets and settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. An important subcategory of plainchant settings is formed by pieces composed in fauxbourdon, where the cantus and tenor are written out but a third voice replicates the cantus line a 4th below.

In terms of compositional approach there are not always marked differences between the first three of the four categories mentioned above. In virtually all cases Du Fay’s point of departure was a cantus-tenor contrapuntal framework expanded by one or two voices. In the case of the plainchant settings the voice that elaborates the chant is the cantus of such a framework. In the cantus-firmus works Du Fay began early on to utilize a double tenor as part of the framework with the cantus, sometimes conflating both tenors into a solus tenor. This is the texture prevalent in virtually all the four-voice isorhythmic motets and the cantus-firmus masses.

There are works where the categories are blurred. The isorhythmic motet Supremum est mortalibus has sections in simple fauxbourdon, some of the cantilenas present complex rhythmic surfaces comparable to those of the isorhythmic motets, and some of the songs make use of cantus-firmus procedures in contexts so simple and compressed as to appear ironic. O tres piteulx/Omnes amici eius is a hybrid of cantilena and motet, and in the late works such as Ave regina celorum (tentatively dated 1463) and the masses ‘Ave regina celorum’ and ‘Ecce ancilla’ the techniques of cantus firmus, plainchant paraphrase and free composition are fused in a remarkable synthesis.

The hallmarks of Du Fay’s style are a balanced and carefully wrought melodic writing style that early on consisted of a well-articulated succession of small motivic cells and became considerably more spun out in the 1440s; a clear and transparent contrapuntal structure with well-defined cadences, closely tied to the rhetorical structure of the text (prompting a number of scholars, beginning with Besseler, 1950, to consider his music as an important step towards the emergence of tonal harmony); and a rich rhythmic surface that retained some of the layering of fast and slow motion characteristics of much late medieval music, even though it became more and more homogeneous and flowing in the later works. In early works the rhythmic activity and the small motifs articulating the melodies call attention to themselves, while in the later music both are subsumed into the smooth flow of sonorities. Finally, an important aspect of Du Fay’s writing that links it with the music of his predecessors and early contemporaries but separates it from later music is the discursive use of chromatic alteration (for discussion of this see Boone, 1987 and 1996, and Brothers, 1997).

Du Fay, Guillaume

4. Chant settings.

More than half of Du Fay’s surviving works consist of chant settings, where one of the voices, usually the cantus, follows the contour, text and phrasing of a plainchant melody with a small amount of elaboration. This melody is supported by a tenor and the texture is expanded by a contratenor, or, in the simplest cases, by fauxbourdon. A few works survive both with fauxbourdon and with a composed contratenor (ex.1).

This kind of polyphony was probably heard not as an independent composition but as an elaboration of the plainchant. It is found in the work of other composers of the late 14th century and the early 15th, and is related to English discant and the practice of improvised polyphony on a chant. Still, an examination of the tenor in ex.1 or a comparison of the two elaborations shows the skill and subtlety with which Du Fay handled the simplest material. His works in this manner cover most of the liturgical categories: they include all the surviving hymns, sequences and Magnificat settings, most of the Office antiphon and responsory settings, some Glorias and the possible Kyrie cycle (Planchart, EMH, 1988). Until recently it was thought that all of Du Fay’s chant settings came from the early part of his career, but the identification of the Missa S Antonii de Padua and the masses for the Order of the Golden Fleece show that he continued writing such works well into the 1450s: the Propers in these pieces are all chant settings, albeit with considerably more elaboration both in the chant-derived voice and in the newly composed parts, which are occasionally expanded to include a second contratenor. From the description of the lost Missa pro defunctis it seems that this work was a series of chant settings as well.

Du Fay, Guillaume

5. Cantilena settings.

Du Fay’s cantilenas have comparatively few antecedents: they go back no further than the music of English and northern Italian composers working at the end of the 14th century. His works cover a relatively wide stylistic field: at one extreme they closely resemble simple chant elaborations (except that here none of the voices is derived from plainchant), as in the earliest of the surviving Ave regina settings (v, 120), and at the other they match the complexity of the isorhythmic motets, as is the case with Inclita stella maris. Within these wide boundaries they present a considerable variety of textures and some, such as Flos florum, are stylistically close to Du Fay’s more florid secular works. Formally the cantilenas are his freest and least predictable works and a number are unique not only in his output but in the entire 15th-century repertory. In a sense, more than a specific genre, these works represent a group of closely related compositional procedures and strategies that Du Fay employed also in the songs and in isolated settings of the Ordinary of the Mass. Texts set in this way may be liturgical, devotional or ceremonial, but virtually all are in Latin. The exceptions are the well-known Vergene bella and O tres piteulx/Omnes amici eius. Closely related to the cantilenas is the famous troped Ave regina celorum (v, 124), but this is a hybrid work incorporating cantus-firmus procedure, his only work that can be classified as a fully fledged example of the new kind of motet cultivated by composers such as Ockeghem, Busnoys and Regis. It represents a summation of all Du Fay’s compositional strategies, including paraphrase, cantus firmus and extended passages of free composition that are reminiscent of his cantilenas.

Du Fay, Guillaume

6. Motets.

Under this heading are considered only those works that Du Fay would have termed a motet, that is, what is now termed an isorhythmic motet. In them Du Fay was working within a tradition that went back over a century before his first efforts in the genre. It is clear that he was aware of the work of Vitry and Machaut, but that his immediate models were largely works from northern Italy and England, particularly those of Ciconia and Dunstaple (Cumming, 1987, 1994; Allsen; Lütteken). Du Fay’s motets have been studied in considerable detail because, beyond their intrinsic musical interest, the majority of them can be associated with specific places and thus provide valuable biographical information. The earliest, Vasilissa ergo gaude, dates from 1420, and the last, Fulgens iubar, possibly from 1447. The earlier motets show Du Fay as an imaginative and able follower of Ciconia, emulating the brilliant sound of the older composer’s works but adapting his techniques to produce denser contrapuntal textures that derive from northern French music of the late 14th century. Most of the motets employ isorhythm in all voices, and several use multiple tenors, some derived from plainchant (Ecclesie militantis; Nuper rosarum flores), and some with a newly composed second tenor (Moribus et genere; Fulgens iubar ecclesie). In the motets where there is more than one talea to a given color the isorhythm is extended to all voices within each section, and in the late motets extensive use is made of isomelic returns (melodic and textual recurrences) to articulate the structure of the work. Several of the early motets have an extended introitus before the entrance of the tenor voice and the start of the isorhythmic structure, and in Supremum est mortalibus the introitus and several interludes are in fauxbourdon. In the latest motets the introitus is incorporated into the isorhythm itself by the inclusion of a series of rests at the beginning of the tenor that are then taken into the talea pattern. A few also conclude with a short coda outside the isorhythmic structure. Du Fay cited the impressive coda of Nuper rosarum flores at the end of his last motet, Fulgens iubar. In all the motets the plainchant tenors are chosen for their emblematic symbolism, and in Supremum est mortalibus a second chant, the antiphon Isti sunt due olive, is cited for the same reason. All the motets subject the tenor to mensural transformations that result in proportional relationships between the sections; in a number of cases these relationships also carry a symbolic meaning, as is the case with Nuper rosarum flores, where the proportions between the sections, 6:4:2:3, replicate the reported measurements of the Temple of Solomon (Wright, 1994). Just as the earlier motets appear to be Du Fay’s response to the music of Ciconia, the later ones, particularly those after Nuper rosarum flores, appear to be his response to English music, not only the motets of Dunstaple but the four-part writing of the ‘Caput’ master.

Du Fay, Guillaume

7. Music for the Mass.

Du Fay’s earliest settings of the Mass show that early on he was acquainted with the music of Loqueville and the French traditions of the late 14th century, but also with the music of Ciconia, Zacar da Teramo and the Lantins. His earliest work in this genre is a Kyrie-Sanctus-Agnus cycle, related to a work of Loqueville and probably composed for the Council of Konstanz (Planchart, 1993). Most of his mass music from before the 1440s consists of isolated movements or pairs composed as plainchant settings or in free settings related to the cantilenas or the secular works. Only a few of these movements use a cantus firmus, and the organization of the Sanctus-Agnus pairs is based on alternations between duos and full-texture sections.

Two complete mass cycles survive from before 1440: these are the Missa sine nomine [‘Resvelliés vous’] and the Missa S Jacobi. The former shares musical material and gestures with the ballade Resvelliés vous, and the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus are interrelated by opening gestures (including ‘plainchant’ intonations written by Du Fay) and extended hocket sections at the end. The Credo shows less of a connection to the other movements and its place in the cycle has been questioned (Hamm, 1960), but it too echoes aspects of the ballade. The Missa S Jacobi is a plenary mass, where an Ordinary interrelated by textural alternations and mensural shifts is complemented by motet-like settings of the Propers, ending with a simple fauxbourdon for the communion, which may be the earliest surviving example of the genre.

In 1439 or early 1440 Du Fay undertook to write the extended cycle of Propers for the Order of the Golden Fleece (identified as his work by Feininger, 1947, and Planchart, EMH, 1988). During the following decade he was concerned with the revision of the liturgy at Cambrai, as discussed above. Most of the music from this period is lost, but its character may be surmised from the one surviving cycle written (according to Fallows, 1982), towards the end of the 1440s. It was published as the Missa S Antonii Viennensis (ii, 47), but it has been shown to be the Missa S Antonii de Padua that is cited in letters and in treatises by Spataro, Tinctoris and Gaffurius (Fallows, 1982). Furthermore, Planchart (EMH, 1988) has suggested that it is in fact a double plenary cycle with two sets of Propers, one for St Anthony of Padua and a second for St Francis. The Propers are plainchant paraphrases; the Ordinary begins with a plainchant paraphrase Kyrie but continues with four free movements in cantilena style that makes conspicuous use of rhythmic complexities, traits also found in the cycles for the Order of the Golden Fleece.

In the 1450s Du Fay turned his attention to the English tradition of mass cycles based on a cantus firmus, and the last four masses securely attributed to him belong in this category. The first of these, the Missa ‘Se la face ay pale’, based on the tenor of his own ballade, is built along the lines of his late isorhythmic motets and shows his awareness of works such as the Missa ‘Caput’. Head motifs and carefully placed returns of musical material from one movement to another are all present in these works. In the Missa ‘Se la face ay pale’ some of these traits clearly recall the isomelic returns in the motets, while in later masses the returning material is presented in a more varied and flexible form. Similarly the later masses move further away from the layered textures of the motet and towards the more homogeneous musical texture found in the music of Ockeghem and Busnoys. Greater use of imitation in the later masses means that melodic elements of the tenor appear in the other voices as well. The Missa ‘L’homme armé’, Du Fay’s most extended work, shows surprising returns to the rhythmic intricacy found in some of the works of the 1440s, and in the masses ‘Ecce ancilla’ and ‘Ave regina’ the tenor (and sometimes the bass in the latter) is presented with its antiphon text instead of the text of the Ordinary. The Missa ‘Ave regina’ also borders on parody since it uses not only a cantus firmus but contains extended citations of the entire polyphonic fabric of his motet of 1463. This mass appears to be a deliberate summation of virtually all Du Fay’s approaches to mass composition.

Du Fay, Guillaume

8. Plainchant melodies.

In 1457 Egidius Carlerius and Du Fay were commissioned to produce the texts and plainchants for a Marian feast that Michel de Beringhen was instituting in his will, the ‘Recollectio omnium festorum Beate Marie Virginis’. They adapted some Marian chants for the feast, but by and large wrote entirely new pieces for the day and night Office as well as for parts of the Mass. Du Fay’s plainchants were identified and studied by Haggh (1988). The antiphons and responsories of the Office are ordered numerically by mode and each melody is composed with careful attention to modal structure in terms of division into tetrachords and pentachords (a trait also found in the songs). Planchart (EMH, 1988) noted that Du Fay may be the composer of a plainchant setting of the introit for St Anthony Abbot, Scitote quoniam, found only in the Cambrai books, and Wright (1994) attributed to Du Fay the prose of the Mass for the dedication of Florence Cathedral, Nuper almos rose flores.

Du Fay, Guillaume

9. Songs.

Du Fay left a large corpus of songs covering all the formes fixes, plus one or two combinative chansons. The majority of the songs are rondeaux, which he composed throughout his career. The ballades are all early works and the few virelais or bergerettes are relatively late. Both of the combinative chansons are also late. A small number of works to Italian texts, which do not follow any of the known poetic forms, are also early apart from the exceptional rondeau Dona gentile, which must date from the 1450s. Most of the songs have a three-part texture using cantus, tenor and contratenor, but a number of four-voice works are more or less evenly distributed throughout his career. In a few cases, such as in Pour l’amour de ma doulce amye, the fourth voice is not by Du Fay. Imitation is present in both early and late works, but becomes slightly more prevalent in the later pieces, particularly between the cantus and the tenor. Straightforward canons and mensuration canons also appear, although infrequently, in early and late works. In most sources text is set only to the cantus, although a considerable number of pieces have text also in the tenor and some in the contratenor. In the late songs the imitation between cantus and tenor invites text underlay of the latter; however, it is clear that underlay in the sources was frequently a matter of scribal preference. The early songs show an extraordinary range of textures, particularly in terms of rhythmic and motivic organization, and some of them are quite idiosyncratic (for example Resvelliés vous, Ma belle dame souveraine, Hé compaignons). The subject matter of the texts also ranges from courtly love to scenes of bourgeois conviviality. Textures in the late songs are smoother and the rhythmic and melodic differentiation between the voices is less pronounced. The texts of the later works are in general closer to the stylistic canons of courtly love poetry. A few of the very late songs, such as Dieu gard la bone, show that Du Fay was aware of the style of the secular works of Ockeghem and particularly Busnoys. Du Fay’s text settings throughout his career pay exquisite attention to the detail in the poetry and to rhetorical and poetic structure, and show an acute concern for the tonal and melodic balance of his lines.

Du Fay, Guillaume

10. Lost works.

A number of works by Du Fay that are mentioned in 15th- and 16th-century records are no longer extant; others probably survive anonymously and are unidentifiable. The lost works include three lamentations on the fall of Constantinople, mentioned by Du Fay in his letter to the Medici, and a number of works copied by Symon Mellet in the 1460s, namely a Magnificat in the 7th mode (1462–3), the hymn O quam glorifica (1463–4), a prose for St Mary Magdalene (Laus tibi Christe, 1463–4) and the Missa pro defunctis (1470); this latter was associated in later performances with a lost Office for the Dead, as discussed above.

The identification of the cycle of weekly Propers for the Order of the Golden Fleece also points to a lost cycle for the Lady Mass, of which only fragments survive. The possibility that Du Fay wrote a Proper cycle for Cambrai in the 1440s would also imply a number of lost works. Evidence for the existence of these Propers is found not only in the anonymous fragments that have been attributed to Du Fay by Feininger and Planchart, but also in the decision by the Cambrai chapter in 1515 that an Epiphany motet being sung at that time should be replaced by another ‘drawn from the works of the late Du Fay’ (Wright, 1975). A Mass for St Anthony Abbot mentioned in the execution of Du Fay’s will has been identified with an anonymous work surviving in Trent 89 (I-TRmp), but the work lacks some movements.

Finally, one or possibly two works of music theory are now lost: these are a Musica, cited in the notes of another music treatise, and a Tractatus de musica mensurata et de proportionibus, which Fétis reported seeing with an ascription to Du Fay, and which was sold to an English bookseller in 1824 and has never been traced.

Du Fay, Guillaume

11. Problems of attribution.

Even in the 15th century a number of works circulated with incorrect or conflicting attributions to Du Fay. This created a particular problem because one of the works incorrectly ascribed to him, the English Missa ‘Caput’, was available early on in a modern edition and assumed a central position in the evaluation of his style. Further problems were created by the often unexplained rejection in Besseler’s edition of a number of works with ascriptions in the sources, particularly hymns and songs. A number of these rejections have been shown to be the result of stylistic analysis based on faulty transcriptions of the music, or of historical assumptions not supported by any evidence (Planchart, EMH, 1988; Fallows, 1995).

A number of anonymous works have been attributed to Du Fay by modern scholars. Hamm’s attributions (1960) of a number of sequences, the motet Elizabeth Zacharie, and a Mass Ordinary in I-Rvat S Pietro B80, have been tentatively accepted by most scholars, and Allsen provided further evidence for the case of Elizabeth Zacharie. Feininger’s attributions of the masses ‘Veterem hominem’, ‘Christus surrexit’ and ‘Puisque je vis’ have been rejected. The first of these is a twin of the Missa ‘Caput’ and was known to Thomas Morley as an English work; the second is based on a German Leise and is part of a little-understood repertory of German masses; the third has remained largely undiscussed in later scholarship. The Missa ‘La mort de St Gothard’, ascribed to Du Fay briefly by Feininger and accepted without explanation by Besseler (ii, 105), is probably a work of Johannes Martini (Nitschke).

In addition Feininger (1947) attributed to Du Fay a number of Proper cycles in Trent 88 (I-TRmp). These attributions were initially treated with considerable scepticism but a considerable amount of new evidence has been uncovered confirming most of Feininger’s attributions (Planchart, 1972; EMH, 1988; 1995; Fallows, 1982). Later attempts to question them (Gerber, 1994) appear to be based on faulty analysis.

The difficulty of attributing any work on the basis of purely stylistic criteria is illustrated by the case of the Mass for St Anthony Abbot, whose attribution to Du Fay is still debated: Fallows rejected it on stylistic grounds, whereas Planchart (EMH, 1988) believes that its liturgical connection with Cambrai means that it can be counted as part of Du Fay’s oeuvre.

Du Fay, Guillaume

12. Sources.

Du Fay’s reputation in the 15th century is attested by the large number of surviving works and by the geographical spread of manuscripts containing his music. His works survive in nearly 100 manuscripts originating in Austria, Bohemia, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Scotland and Spain, dating from the second quarter of the 15th century to the first quarter of the 16th. Particularly important sources for his music are the early Italian anthologies, GB-Ob Can.misc.213, I-Bc Q15 and I-Bu 2216, which transmit virtually all his surviving music up to about 1435. Much of his ceremonial music appears also in a carefully copied source, I-MOe α.X.1.11, copied in Ferrara in about 1445, and some of the very late works appear in a source relatively close to the composer, B-Br 5557. For much of the music that he wrote in the 1440s and 50s, however, we have only copies very distantly related to the composer, such as the Trent codices, although in the case of the songs, manuscripts copied in the Loire valley and in Savoy transmit sound versions of his works.

Du Fay, Guillaume

13. Editions.

Du Fay’s music first became available in modern transcriptions as examples in studies by Kiesewetter, Rochlitz and Ambros. Important works were edited by Haberl, in several of the volumes of music from the Trent codices in the DTÖ series, and in Stainer’s influential edition of music from GB-Ob Can.misc.213. Important editions of sacred and secular works were published by Besseler (1932) and Gerber (1937). A systematic publication of the complete works was begun by Guillaume De Van, with the cantilena motets (1947), the isorhythmic motets (1947) and two masses (1949). On De Van’s death Besseler took over the editorship in 1951 and completed the edition in 1966, reissuing the works edited by De Van. Besseler’s edition, however, is marred by typographical errors, incomplete transcriptions, unreported changes in mensural reduction and lacunae in the critical reports. A number of those occurring in the second and fourth volumes of the edition were corrected by Bockholdt (1960); the sixth volume was revised and corrected by Fallows in 1995.

Du Fay, Guillaume

WORKS

Editions:Guillelmi Dufay opera omnia, ed. H. Besseler, CMM, i/1–6 (1951–66) [with important introduction to each vol.]; CMM, i/6 rev. D. Fallows (1995) with commentary in MSD, xlvii (1995) [vol., p.]Die frühen Messenkompositionen von Guillaume Dufay, ed. R. Bockholdt (Tutzing, 1960), ii [B]

masses and mass ordinary movements

mass proper settings

magnificat and benedicamus domino

antiphons

hymns

isorhythmic motets

cantilena motets

plainchant melodies

secular

works with conflicting attributions

doubtful works

works attributed to du fay by modern scholars

lost works

theoretical works

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

masses and mass ordinary movements

 

 


 

 

Title

No. of voices

Edition

Remarks


 

 

Missa [sine nomine]

3

ii, 1

Shares musical material with ballade Resvelliés vous; complex transmission pattern

Missa ‘Ave regina celorum’

4

iii, 91

c.f.: Marian ant in T

Missa ‘Ecce ancilla Domini’

4

iii, 66

c.f.: ‘Ecce ancilla Domini’ (ant, Annunciation), ‘Beata es Maria’ (ant, Visitation) in T

Missa ‘L’homme armé’

4

iii, 33

c.f.: Fr. monophonic song in T

Missa ‘Resvelliés vous’ [see Missa sine nomine]

 

 

 

Missa ‘Se la face ay pale’

4

iii, 1

c.f.: Du Fay’s ballade in T

Missa S Jacobi

3, 4

ii, 17

Feast of St James; int (Mihi autem), Ky, Gl, all (Alleluia, Hispanorum clarens stella), Cr, off (In omnem terram), San, Ag, comm (Vos qui secuti estis); chants paraphrased in cantus of Ordinary or as c.f. in T of Propers.

Kyrie, Gloria, Credo

3

iv, 3 B 24

 

Kyrie, Sanctus ‘Qui ianuas mortis’, Agnus Dei

3

iv, 8; v, 155 B 30

San and Ag c.f. ‘Vineux’; in a ‘cycle’ in I-Bc Q15, see alsoVineux.

Gloria, Credo

4

iv, 31 B 48

 

Gloria ‘Resurrexit dominus’, Credo ‘Dic Maria’

4

iv, 20 B 38

Gl: c.f. ‘Tu m’as monté’ in cantus I; Cr: c.f. ‘La vilanella’ in cantus I; some MSS have different trope.

Sanctus, Agnus Dei

3

iv, 41 B 64

 

Sanctus, Agnus Dei

3

iv, 45 B 21

 

Sanctus ‘Ave verum corpus’, Agnus ‘Custos et pastor’

4

iv, 53

Scribal pairing; San marked ‘papale’, Ag trope has papal connections; Ag anon. in source

Kyrie ‘Cum jubilo’

3

iv, 67 B 9

cantus paraphrases Kyrie IX

Kyrie ‘Cunctipotens genitor’

3

iv, 62 B 13

fauxbourdon setting; cantus paraphrases Kyrie IV; fauxbourdon replaced by composed contratenor in final Kyrie

Kyrie ‘Fons bonitatis’

3

iv, 69 B 1

cantus paraphrases Kyrie II

Kyrie ‘Fons bonitatis’

3

iv, 70 B 3

cantus II paraphrases Kyrie II

Kyrie ‘Jesu redemptor’

3

iv, 65

fauxbourdon setting; cantus paraphrases Kyrie XIV

Kyrie ‘Lux et origo’

4

iv, 68 B 8

cantus paraphrases Kyrie I

Kyrie ‘Orbis factor’

3

iv, 63 B 5

cantus paraphrases Kyrie XI

Kyrie ‘Orbis factor’

3

iv, 64 B 7

cantus II paraphrases Kyrie XI

Kyrie ‘Pater cuncta’

3

iv, 61 B 12

cantus paraphrases Kyrie XII

Kyrie ‘Rex genitor’

3

iv, 71 B 11

rubric ‘In semiduplicis maioris’

Gloria

3

iv, 77 B 35

 

Gloria [in dominicis]

3

iv, 85 B 16

cantus paraphrases Gloria XI; alternatim setting

Gloria

3

iv, 90 B 59

paired in I-TRmp 92 with Kyrie (iv, 72; see ‘Doubtful works’), but ascription of Gloria is unchallenged

Gloria ad modum tube

4

iv, 79

cantus II canonically derived

Gloria de quaremiaux

3

iv, 81 B 31

facs. in B, facing p.31

Gloria dominicale minus

3

iv, 88 B 14

cantus paraphrases Gloria XV; alternatim setting

Gloria in galli cantu

3

iv, 86 B 18

cantus paraphrases Gloria XIV; alternatim setting; possibly intended for 1st Mass of Christmas

Gloria ‘Spiritus et alme’

3

iv, 83

cantus paraphrases Gloria IX with trope; alternatim setting

Credo

3

iv, 17

paired in Bc Q15 with Gl by Hugo de Lantins (see ‘Doubtful works’)

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

mass proper settings

Alleluia, Hispanorum clarens stella

4

ii, 27

all, part of Missa S Jacobi; plainchant (?by Du Fay) in T

Alleluia, Veni Sancte spiritus

3

ii, 71

all, part of Mass for the Holy Ghost (see ‘Works attributed to Du Fay by modern scholars’); chant paraphrased in cantus

Confirma hoc Deus

3

 

off, part of Mass for the Holy Ghost (see ‘Works attributed to Du Fay by modern scholars’); chant paraphrased in cantus; anon. in MS but Spataro quoted a passage from it in a letter (1532) as being by Du Fay; ed. in Feininger (1947), 10

Epiphaniam domino canamus

3

v, 8

seq, Epiphany; plainchant paraphrased in cantus

In omnem terram

4

ii, 37

off, part of Missa S Jacobi; c.f. in T

Isti sunt due olive

3

v, 27

seq, St Peter and St Paul; chant paraphrased in a different voice in each verse

Lauda Sion

3

v, 21

seq, Corpus Christi; chant paraphrased in cantus and T in different verses

Letabundus exsultet

3

v, 5

seq, Christmas; chant paraphrased in cantus and T in different verses

Mihi autem nimis

4

ii, 17

int, part of Missa S Jacobi; plainchant in T

Os justi

3

 

int, confessors, part of Mass for St Francis (see ‘Works attributed to Du Fay by modern scholars’); chant paraphrased in cantus; anon. in MS but Spataro quoted a passage from it in a letter (1532) as being by Du Fay; ed. in Feininger, 1947, p.151

Os justi

3

 

grad, part of Mass for St Anthony of Padua (see ‘Works attributed to Du Fay by modern scholars’); chant paraphrased in cantus; anon. in MS but attributed to Du Fay in Spataro’s Tractato (1531); ed. in Feininger, p.135

Rex omnipotens

3

v, 13

seq, Ascension; chant paraphrased in cantus and Ct

Veni Sancte Spiritus

3

v, 18

seq, Whitsunday; chant paraphrased in cantus II

Victime paschali laudes

3

v, 11

seq, Easter; chant paraphrased in cantus

Vos qui secuti estis

3

ii, 44

comm, part of Missa S Jacobi; chant paraphrased in cantus

 

 

 

 

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

magnificat and benedicamus domino

Magnificat tertii et quarti toni

4, 3, 2

v, 91

also ed. I. Pope and M. Kanazawa: The Musical Manuscript Montecassino 871 (Oxford, 1978), no.74

Magnificat quinti toni

3

v, 87

alternatim; sets even-numbered verses after the first

Magnificat sexti toni

3

v, 75

also ascribed to Binchois (erased) and Dunstaple, but by Du Fay

Magnificat octavi toni

2, 3

v, 81

 

Benedicamus Domino

3

v, 35

chant in T

Benedicamus Domino

3

v, 36

 

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

antiphons

Alma redemptoris mater [i]

3

v, 115

BVM; plainchant in T

Alma redemptoris mater [ii]

3

v, 117

BVM; chant paraphrased in cantus

Anima mea lique facta est

3

v, 113

BVM; chant paraphrased in all voices

Ave regina celorum [i]

3

v, 120

BVM

Ave regina celorum [ii]

3

v, 121

BVM; chant paraphrased in cantus

Ave regina celorum [iii]

4

v, 124

BVM; troped ‘Miserere tui’; chant in T, also paraphrased in cantus and Ct

Hic vir despiciens

3

v, 101

chant paraphrased in cantus; fauxbourdon setting

Magi videntes

3

v, 98

chant paraphrased in cantus

O gemma martyrum

3

v, 103

chant paraphrased in cantus

Petrus apostolus et Paulus

3

v, 103

St Peter and St Paul; chant paraphrased in cantus

Propter nimiam caritatem

3

v, 97

chant paraphrased in cantus; fauxbourdon setting

Salva nos, Domine

3

v, 39

chant paraphrased in cantus

Salve regina

4

 

BVM; ascription to Du Fay questioned in earlier scholarship, more recently reconsidered; ed. in DTÖ, xiv–xv, Jg.vii (1900/R), p.178

Salve sancte pater

3

v, 104

chant paraphrased in cantus

Sapiente filio

3

v, 105

chant paraphrased in cantus; fauxbourdon setting

Si queris miracula

3

v, 106

chant paraphrased in cantus; text and chant by Julian of Speyer

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

hymns

Ad cenam agni providi

3

v, 47

Easter; odd numbered stanzas; a second version exists with slightly different cantus and T, and with fauxbourdon instead of contratenor. 3 further anon. arrangements of this latter setting, in D-MERa, I-CFm CII, Trent 89 (TRmp)

A solis ortus cardine [= Hostis Herodes impie]

 

 

 

Audi, benigne conditor

3

v, 44

Lent; chant in Ct

Aurea luce et decore roseo [= Doctor egregie, Paule]

3

v, 62

Feast of St Peter and S Paul

Aures ad nostras deitas [i]

3

v, 45

Sundays in Lent

Ave maris stella

3

v, 55

2 versions: one with fauxbourdon, one with composed Ct (separate T and Ct parts in TRmp 92, ed. v, 143, are not by Du Fay)

Christe redemptor omnium, conserva

3

v, 57, 58

All Saints; 2 versions: one with fauxbourdon, one with composed Ct

Christe redemptor omnium, ex Patre

3

v, 40

Christmas; 2 versions: one with fauxbourdon, one with composed Ct

Conditor alme siderum

3

v, 39

Advent; fauxbourdon setting

Deus tuorum militum

3

v, 66

feasts of one martyr; fauxbourdon setting; 2 further anon. versions with new T and Ct (v, 59, 60) may not be by Du Fay

Exultet celum laudibus

3

v, 63

apostolic feasts; 2 versions: one with fauxbourdon, one with composed Ct

Festum nunc celebre

3

v, 139

Ascension; considered inauthentic by some scholars

Hostis Herodes impie

3

v, 42

Epiphany; music also to Christmas text A solis ortus cardine

Iste confessor

3

v, 69

martyrs; fauxbourdon setting; further anon. version with composed Ct stylistically probably by Du Fay (v, 61)

Jesu corona virginum

3

v, 70

feasts of one virgin; fauxbourdon setting; 2 further anon. versions: one with new T and Ct, stylistically probably by Du Fay (v, 62), one with new Ct and B, late 15th century (v, 63)

Jesu nostra redemptio

3

v, 50

Ascension

O lux beata Trinitas

3

v, 52

Trinity; sets odd-numbered stanzas in all sources but one.

Pange lingua gloriosi [i]

3

v, 53

Corpus Christi; chant paraphrased in cantus

Pange lingua gloriosi [ii]

3

v, 140

separate setting from Pange lingua [i]; considered inauthentic by some scholars

Proles de celo prodiit

3

v, 71

St Francis

Sanctorum meritis inclita

3

v, 67

several martyrs

Tibi Christe splendor Patris

3

v, 60

St Michael (angels); fauxbourdon setting

Urbs beata Jerusalem

3

v, 54

Dedication of a church; 2 further anon. versions: one a fauxbourdon reworking of cantus, probably by Du Fay (v, 141), one with new Ct, late 15th century (v, 142)

Ut queant laxis

3

v, 61

St John Baptist

Veni Creator Spiritus

3

v, 51

Pentecost

Vexilla regis prodeunt

3

v, 46

Passiontide; a further anon. fauxbourdon setting (with new T), probably by Du Fay (v, 54)

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

isorhythmic motets

Apostolo glorioso/Cum tua doctrina/Andreas Christi

5, 4

i, 33

for rededication of church of St Andrew, Patras (1426) or the appointment of Pandolfo Malatesta as archbishop (1424); version for 4vv with solus tenor

Balsamus et munda cera/Isti sunt agni novelli

4

i, 54

Distribution of the Agnus Dei by Pope Eugenius IV, 7 April 1431

Ecclesie militantis/Sanctorum arbitrio/Bella canunt gentes/Gabriel/Ecce nomen Domini

5

i, 46

Perhaps for coronation of Pope Eugenius IV (1431), although the texts give no clear indication

Fulgens iubar ecclesie/Puerpera pura parens/Virgo post partum

4

i, 80

Purification of the BVM; perhaps written for the installation of Pierre de Ranchicourt as canon of Cambrai (1447). Acrostic in motetus: PETRUS DE CASTELLO CANTA; refers to Pierre du Castel, a witness at Pierre’s installation.

Magnanime gentis/Nexus amictie/Hec est vera fraternitas

3

i, 76

Peace treaty between Louis of Savoy and Philippe, Count of Geneva (1438)

Moribus et genere/Virgo virga virens/Virgo est electus

4

i, 88

St John the Evangelist; possibly for John of Burgundy’s visit to Cambrai, June–Aug 1442

Nuper rosarum flores/Terribilis est

4

i, 70

Dedication of S Maria del Fiore, Florence, by Eugenius IV, 24 March 1436

O gemma, lux et speculum/Sacer pastor Barensium/[Beatus Nicolaus adhuc]

4

i, 29

St Nicholas of Bari

O sancte Sebastiane/O martyr Sebastiane/O quam mira refulsit gratia/Gloria et honore

4

i, 24

St Sebastian

Rite maiorem Jacobum/Artibus summis miseri/Ora pro nobis Dominum

4, 3

i, 38

St James the Great; acrostic in triplum and motetus: ROBERTUS ACLOU CURATUS SANCTI IACOBI; probably 1426–7; version for 3vv with solus tenor

Salve flos Tusce/Vos nunc Etruscorum iubar/Viri mendaces

4

i, 64

In praise of Florence and the women of Florence, probably 1436

Supremum est mortalibus

3

i, 59

Commemorates the meeting between Eugenius IV and King Sigismund (Emperor-elect), 31 May 1433

Vasilissa ergo gaude/Concupivit rex

4

i, 21

On the departure of Cleofe Malatesta, 20 Aug 1420, for her marriage

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

cantilena motets

Ave virgo que de celis

3

i, 8

seq, BVM

Flos florum

3

i, 6

rhymed prayer; BVM

Gaude virgo mater Christi

3, 4

v, 1

seq, Feast of the Joys of the BVM; contratenor probably not by Du Fay (3vv in I-Bc Q15)

Imperatrix angelorum [see Mirandas parit hec urbs]

 

 

 

Inclita stella maris

4, 3, 2

i, 1

BVM; a canon indicates possibility of performance in several different combinations of voices; cantus II is a mensuration canon

Juvenis qui puellam

3

vi, 15

text is a legal dispute; inc., after 1438

Mirandas parit hec urbs

3

i, 12

In praise of Florence and its ladies; probably 1436; text in TRmp 87 ‘Imperatrix angelorum’

O beate Sebastiane

3

i, 10

St Sebastian

O proles Hispanie/O sidus Hispanie

4

i, 15

St Anthony of Padua

O tres piteulx/Omnes amici eius

4

vi, 19

lament on the fall of Constantinople; between 1454 and 1457; motet-like texture with cantus firmus

Vergene bella

3

vi, 7

BVM; vernacular devotional work; text by Petrarch

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

plainchant melodies

Mass Propers

Alleluia, Beati omnes (all); Luce splendida fulgebis (grad); Nuper almos rose flores (seq); Scitote quoniam (int)

antiphons

Angelus mittitur; Anna parit Joachim; Anna stellam matutinam; Antiquum consilium; Ave virgo speciosa; Beata es, Dei genetrix; Femina vetus; Festinat ad cognatam; Gabriel archangelus; Gloriam virginis; Mittitur ad Mariam; Non concava vallium; Salve vellus; Solem justitie; Tenebrae diffugiunt; Tota pulchra es; Vidi speciosam; Virga florens paritura; Virgo mater filium; Virgo puerum sistit

hymns

Gaude redempta; Nuntiat angelus

responsories

Ibo ad montem; O felix virgo; Omnipotens dominus; Scandit ad ethra; Surge propera; Ut audivit precursoris

invitatories

Festa genetricis Dei recolentes

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

secular

Italian

Dona gentile, bella come l’oro

3

vi, 12

music in rondeau form to text apparently adapted from a ballata

Dona, i ardenti ray

3

vi, 10

?ballata; musico-poetic form unclear

La dolce vista

3

vi, 6

ballata

L’alta belleza tua virtute valore

3

vi, 1

ballata; text of volta missing and irregular rhyme in piedi

Invidia nimica

4

vi, 2

Suggestion that only Ct II is by Du Fay, but accepted as genuine by Fallows (1995)

Passato è il tempo omai di quei pensieri

3

vi, 4

ballata

Quel fronte signorille in paradiso

3

vi, 11

musico-poetic form unclear; authenticity questioned by Bent but affirmed by Fallows (1982; 1995)

ballades

Bien doy servir de volenté entiere

3

vi, 37

 

Ce jour le doibt, aussi fait la saison

3

vi, 34

 

C’est bien raison de devoir essaucier

3

vi, 31

to Niccolò d’Este, mentioning a peace treaty, probably 26 April 1433

J’ay mis mon cuer et ma pensee

3

vi, 28

acrostic: ISABETE; perhaps for the wedding of Elisabetta Malatesta da Rimini to Piergentile Varano, 1425

Je me complains piteusement

3

vi, 29

dated 12 July 1425 in only source

Mon chier amy, qu’aves vous empensé

3

vi, 30

possibly to Carlo Malatesta da Rimini on the death of his brother Pandolfo, 3 Oct 1427 (Fallows, 1982)

Resvelliés vous et faites chiere lye

3

vi, 25

for wedding of Carlo Malatesta da Pesaro and Vittoria di Lorenzo Colonna, 23 July 1423

Se la face ay pale [i]

3

vi, 36

 

rondeaux

Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys

3

vi, 50

dated 1426 in only source

Adieu m’amour, adieu ma joye

3

vi, 91

 

Adyeu, quitte le demeurant

3

vi, 90

1½ lines of text only

Belle plaisant et gracieuse

3

vi, 60

 

Belle, que vous ay je meffait

3

vi, 65

one stanza of text only

Belle, veulliés moy retenir

3

vi, 52

 

Belle, vuelliés moy vengier

3

vi, 92

 

Belle, vuelliés vostre mercy donner

3

vi, 66

 

Bien veignés vous, amoureuse liesse

3

vi, 69

one stanza of text only; T derived canonically from cantus; Fallows (1995) expressed doubts about authenticity

Bon jour, bon mois, bon an et bonne estraine

3

vi, 77

 

Ce jour de l’an

3

vi, 58

 

Ce moys de may

3

vi, 59

 

Craindre vous vueil, doulce dame de pris

3

vi, 79

acrostic: CATELINE DUFAI; expanded reworking of Quel fronte signorille

Dieu gard la bone sans reprise

3

vi, 93

 

Donnés l’assault a la fortresse

3, 4

vi, 86

versions for 3 and 4 voices

Du tout m’estoie abandonné

3

vi, 96

one stanza of text only

Entre les plus plaines d’anoy

3

vi, 83

one stanza of text only

Entre vous, gentils amoureux

3

vi, 49

T derived canonically

En triumphant de Cruel Dueil

3

vi, 88

perhaps on death of Binchois, 1460/61 (see Fallows, 1975); in first edn of vol.vi with corrupt text ‘Je triomphe’

Estrinés moy, je vous estrineray

3

vi, 76

 

Franc cuer gentil, sur toutes gracieuse

3

vi, 89

Acrostic: FRANCHOISE

Hé, compaignons, resvelons nous

4

vi, 68

Text mentions musicians in the employ of the Malatesta family, 1423 (Planchart, EMH, 1988)

Helas, et quant vous veray

3

vi, 56

refrain only

Helas, ma dame, par amours

3

vi, 64

one stanza of text only

J’atendray tant qu’il vous playra

3

vi, 61

 

J’ay grant (dolour)

3

vi, 82

no more text; known from Coussemaker’s transcription of the lost MS F-Sm 222

Je donne a tous les amoureux

3

vi, 71

 

Je n’ay doubté fors que des envieux

3

vi, 70

refrain only

Je ne puis plus ce que j’ay peu/Unde veniet auxilium mihi?

3

vi, 51

T follows ant for Terce on 4th day after Epiphany

Je ne suy plus tel que soloye

3

vi, 57

 

Je prens congié de vous, Amours

3

vi, 75

 

Je requier a tous amoureux

3

vi, 54

 

Je triomphe [see En triumphant]

 

 

 

Je veuil chanter de cuer joyeux

3

vi, 57

acrostic: JEHAN DE DINANT

La plus mignonne de mon cuer

3

vi, 94

in first edn of vol.vi with corrupt text ‘Ma plus mignonne’

Las, que feray? Ne que je devenray

3

vi, 85

 

Les douleurs dont me sont tel somme

4

vi, 97

T derived canonically from cantus

Le serviteur hault guerdonné

3

vi, 110

Du Fay’s authorship disputed by Besseler, reaffirmed by Fallows (1982, 1995)

Ma belle dame, je vous pri

3

vi, 53

 

Ma belle dame souveraine

4

vi, 63

 

Ma plus mignonne [see La plus mignonne]

 

 

 

Mille bonjours je vous presente

3

vi, 81

one stanza of text only

Mon bien, m’amour

3

vi, 87

 

Mon cuer me fait tous dis penser

4

vi, 72

acrostic: MARIA ANDREASQ

Navré je sui d’un dart penetratif

3

vi, 55

 

Ne je dors, ne je veille

3

vi, 92

 

Or pleust a Dieu qu’a son plaisir

3

vi, 78

 

Par droit je puis bien complaindre et gemir

3, 4

vi, 62

cantus II is canonically derived and functions as a contrapuntal tenor

Par le regard de vos beaux yeux

3

vi, 88

 

Pouray je avoir vostre mercy

3

vi, 54

 

Pour ce que veoir je ne puis

3

vi, 60

 

Pour l’amour de ma doulce amye

3, 4

vi, 67

triplum is alternative voice to Ct and is probably not by Du Fay

Puisque celle qui me tient en prison

3

vi, 82

first line of text only

Puisque vous estez campieur

3

vi, 95

cantus derived canonically from T

Qu’est devenue leaulté?

3

vi, 84

two lines of text only

Resvelons nous, resvelons, amoureux/Alons en bien tost en may

3

vi, 51

Ct and T canonic, but written out

Se ma dame je puis veir

3

vi, 72

 

 

 

 

 

Trop long temps ai este en deplaisir

3

vi, 80

ascription to Du Fay very faint (not erased); one stanza of text only

Va t’en, mon cuer, jour et nuitie

3

vi, 84

 

Vo regard et doulce maniere

3

vi, 74

 

Vostre bruit et vostre grant fame

3

vi, 96

 

[No surviving Fr text]

3

vi, 75

in MS with contrafactum text ‘Hic iocundus sumit mundus’; lost rondeau text with five-line stanza

virelais

De ma haulte et bonne aventure

3

vi, 41

 

Helas mon dueil, a ce cop sui je mort

3

vi, 42

? a section of text missing (Arlt and Gossen suggest that the text is complete)

Malheureulx cuer, que vieulx tu faire?

3

vi, 43

 

S’il est plaisir que je vous puisse faire

4

vi, 93

cantus I and T probably by Du Fay, cantus II and Ct perhaps added by another; Ct incomplete; one MS has Latin texts in cantus parts

other secular

Hic iocundus sumit mundus

3

vi, 56

contrafactum of lost Fr rondeau

Je vous pri, mon tres doulx ami/Ma tres douce amie/Tant que mon argent dura

4

vi, 45

combinative chanson

isolated voice-parts

Gloria

4

iv, 101

Ct by Du Fay

J’aime bien celui qui s’en va

2, 3

vi, 86

rondeau (by Fontaine); alternative Ct ‘Trompette’ attrib. Du Fay (Besseler; supported by Fallows, 1995)

La belle se siet au pied de la tour

3

vi, 12

cantus II only by Du Fay (Hamm, 1964)

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

works with conflicting attributions

sacred

Gloria

3

iv, 15

also ascribed to Hugo de Lantins, who is probably the composer; paired with Du Fay’s Credo (iv, 17) in I-Bc Q15

Magnificat primi toni

3

 

also ascribed to Binchois, but dual ascription to Binchois and Du Fay in MOe may indicate collaboration; ed. J. Marix: Les musiciens à la cour de Bourgogne au XVe siècle (Paris, 1937/R)

Veni dilecti mi

3

i, 102

cantilena; BMV; ascribed also to Johannes de Lymburgia, probably by him

secular

Departes vous, Malebouche et Envie

3

vi, 111

rondeau; also ascribed to Ockeghem; possibly by Du Fay

Je languis en piteux martire

3

vi, 33

ballade; ascription to Du Fay over an erased ascription to ‘Dumstabl’ (Bent, 1980); considered to be by Dunstaple; three lines of text only

Je ne vis onques la pareille

3

vi, 109

rondeau; also ascribed to Binchois; performed at the ‘Banquet du voeu’, Lille, 1454

Mon seul plaisir, ma doulce joye

3

vi, 108

rondeau; also ascribed to Bedyngham and probably by him

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

doubtful works

sacred

Missa ‘Caput’

4

ii, 75

ascribed to Du Fay in TRmp 88 and 89 but ascription in MS 89 subsequently erased; the mass is now considered an anonymous English work of the 1440s

Kyrie

4

iv, 72

no plainchant; paired with Gloria (iv, 90) in TRmp 92; ascription challenged by Monson (1975) and accepted by most scholars

Gloria

3

iv, 75

ascription to Du Fay challenged (although not entirely rejected) by Bockholdt (1960)

Gloria

4

iv, 97

possibly contrafactum; ascription to Du Fay challenged by Besseler, followed by most scholars

O gloriose tiro/Divine pastus demum/Iste sanctus

4

i, 103

isorhythmic motet; St Theodore; ascription questioned by De Van, Besseler and Fallows, affirmed by Allsen and Lütteken

Qui latuit in virgine [see Je suis povere de leesse, below]

 

 

 

secular

Il sera pour vous/L’homme armé

3, 4

 

combinative chanson; anon. in US-Nhu 91 (3vv), ascr. ‘Borton’ in rev. version (4vv), I-Rc 2856; Fallows considers it to be by Robert Morton; ed. L.L. Perkins and H. Garey: The Mellon Chansonnier (New Haven, CT, 1979)

Je suis povere de leesse

3

i, 101

basse danse; in one source Ct has text ‘Du pist mein hort’, in another the work is texted ‘Qui latuit in virgine’; Du Fay’s authorship doubted by most authors

O flos florum virginum

3

vi, 107

rondeau; no known French text; probably not by Du Fay

Or me veult bien Esperance mentir

3

vi, 106

ballade; Du Fay may be the composer of Ct only (see Fallows, 1995); title ‘Portugaler’ remains unexplained

Portugaler [see Or me veult]

 

 

 

Resistera

3

vi, 111

ascription to Du Fay in later hand; no more text

Se la face ay pale [ii]

3, 4

vi, 105

ballade; arrangement of Du Fay’s setting

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

works attributed to du fay by modern scholars

mass Ordinary cycles and mass sections

Missa sine nomine

3

Rvat S Pietro B 80, 113v–121v, anon.; attrib. Du Fay by Hamm (1964)

Missa ‘Christus surrexit’

4

 

TRmp 89; attrib. Du Fay by Feininger but rejected by all other scholars; c.f. is a Leise, Christ ist erstanden; ed. L. Feininger, Monumenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 1st ser., ii/1 (Rome, 1951), no.3

Missa ‘La mort de St Gothard’

4

ii, 105

attrib. Du Fay by Besseler but rejected by all other scholars; Feininger and Nitschke suggested that Johannes Martini was the composer

Missa ‘Puisque je vis’

4

 

Rvat C.S.14; attrib. Du Fay by Feininger; based on T of an anon. rondeau; ed. L. Feininger, Monumenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 1st ser., ii/4 (Rome, 1952), no.2

Missa S Antonii Viennensis [see Mass for St Anthony of Padua]

 

 

 

Missa ‘Veterem hominem’

4

 

TRmp 88; attrib. Du Fay by Feininger on the basis of its similarity with Missa ‘Caput’; now regarded as an English work; ed. L. Feininger, Monumenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 1st ser., ii/1 (Rome, 1951), no.2; also ed. M. Bent, EECM, xxii (1979), 110

Kyrie ‘Lux et origo’

3

B, 9

cantus paraphrases Kyrie I; attributed Du Fay by Dèzes (1926), attribution questioned by Bockholdt (1960) and generally not now accepted

Gloria

3

 

ascribed to Hugo de Lantins; Schoop convincingly argued for Du Fay’s authorship; ed. C. van den Borren: Polyphonia sacra: a Continental Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century (Burnham, Bucks., 1932, 2/1963), no.16

Gloria

3

 

Gastoué proposed that the ascription to Susay was a scribal error for Du Fay; this now firmly rejected by scholars; ed. in CMM, xxix (1962), no.35

plenary masses

Mass for St Anthony of Padua (Missa S Antonii Viennensis)

3, 4

ii, 47 B 68

int (In medio ecclesiae), Ky, Gl, grad (Os justi meditabitur), all (Alleluia, Antoni compar inclite), Cr, off (Veritas mea), San, Ag, comm (Domine quinque talenta); complex transmission pattern; Du Fay’s authorship confirmed by Fallows (1982) with new information indicating that the mass is not for St Anthony Abbot, as was previously thought, but is for St Anthony of Padua, possibly for the dedication of Donatello’s altar in the basilica in Padua (June, 1450); Propers ed. in Feininger (1947), p.122

Mass for St Francis

3, 4

 

int (Gaudeamus in Domino), int (octave: Os justi meditabitur); Ky, Gl, grad (Os justi meditabitur), all (Alleluia, O patriarcha pauperum), Cr, off (Veritas mea), San, comm (Fidelis servus); Planchart (EMH, 1988) proposed association of Ordinary and Proper movements (Ordinary and some Propers same as those from St Anthony Mass); Propers ed. in Feininger (1947), p.148

Mass for St Anthony Abbot

3

int (Scitote quoniam), Gl, grad (Thronus eius), all (Vox de caelo), Cr, off (Inclito Antonio), San, Ag (Ky and comm missing); transmitted anonymously in I-TRmp 89; Du Fay’s will mentions the mass; Planchart suggests that Du Fay was the composer on the basis of its use of chants found only in Cambrai

Proper cycles

The works listed below are all transmitted in Trent 88 (I-TRmp) and are all ed. in Feininger (1947) [F]. Feininger proposed that they could be attributed to Du Fay; six of them, common masses to be celebrated throughout the year, have been associated with the Order of the Golden Fleece (Prizer; Planchart, EMH, 1988; 1993), a further four are for specific feasts.

Mass de Angelis

2–3

F, 69

common mass, Tuesday; int (Benedicite Dominum omnes), grad (Benedicite Dominum omnes), all (Alleluia, In conspectu angelorum), all, Easter (Laudate deum), off (Stetit angelus); comm (Benedicte omnes angeli)

Mass for the Blessed Virgin

2–3

F, 12, 17, appx.

common mass [Saturday]; fragmentary; int (Gaudeamus omnes), all (Alleluia, Dulcis mater), all (Alleluia, Ora pro nobis), tr (Audi filia), off (Felix namque), comm (Beata viscera)

Mass for the Holy Cross

2–3

F, 46

common mass, Friday; int (Nos autem gloriam), grad (Christus factus est), all (Alleluia, Dicite in gentibus), all, Easter (Alleluia, Dulce lignum), off (Protege Domine), comm (Per signum crucem)

Mass for the Holy Spirit

2–4

F, 1

common mass, Thursday; int (Spiritus Domini), int, Lent (Dum sanctificatus fuero), grad (Beata gens), all (Alleluia, Emitte spiritum), all, Easter (Alleluia, Veni Sancte Spiritus), off (Confirma hoc Deus), comm (Factus est repente)

Mass for the Holy Trinity

3–4

F, 16

common mass, Sunday; int (Benedicta sit), grad (Benedictus es Domine), all (Alleluia, Benedicta es Domine), all, Easter (Alleluia, Verbo Domini), off (Benedictus sit Deus), comm (Benedicte deum celi)

Mass for St Andrew

2–3

F, 31

common mass, Wednesday; int (Mihi autem nimis), grad (Constitues eos), all (Alleluia, Dilexit Andream), all, Easter (Alleluia, Ego vos elegi), off (Mihi autem), comm (Venite post me)

Mass for St George

2–4

F, 84

common of martyrs (see Planchart, EMH, 1988; 1993); int (In virtute tua), int, Easter (Protexisti me, Deus), all (Alleluia, Posuisti Domine), tr (Desiderium anime), off (In virtute tua), off, Easter (Confitebuntur celi), comm [Posuisti Domine], comm, Easter (Letabitur justus)

Mass for St John the Baptist

2–3

F, 58

int (De ventre matris meae), grad (Priusquam te formarem), all (Tu puer propheta), off (Justus ut palma), comm (Tu puer propheta)

Mass for St Maurice and his companions

2–4

F, 108

int (Venite benedicti), int, octave (Sapientia sanctorum), grad (Gloriosus Deus), all (Alleluia, Judicabunt sancti), off (Mirabilis Deus), comm (Gaudete justi)

Mass for St Sebastian

2–4

F, 166

int (Letabitur justus), grad (Posuisti Domine), all (Alleluia, Sebastiani gratia), off (Gloria et honore), comm (Magna est gloria)

other sacred

Letabundus exultet

3

seq, Christmas; TRmp 92, ff.68v–69v; chant paraphrased in cantus; attrib. by Hamm (1964)

Mittit ad virginem

3

seq, Annunciation; Bc Q15, ff.309v–310v; TRmp 92, ff.67v–68v; chant paraphrased in cantus; attrib. by Hamm (1962; 1964)

Sancti Spiritus adsit

3

seq, Pentecost; TRmp 92, ff.36v–37r; attrib. by Hamm (1962; 1964)

Veni Sancte Spiritus

3

seq, Pentecost; D-Mbs Clm 14274; I-AO 15, ff.185v–186v; Bc Q15, ff.300–01; accepted as authentic by Hamm (1964)

Elizabeth Zacharie/Lingua pectus concordes/Elizabeth

4

 

Isorhythmic motet; St John Baptist; TRmp 87; attributed by Hamm (1964), and Allsen; ed. in DTÖ, lxxvi, Jg. xl (1933/R), 16; also ed. J.M. Allsen: Four Late Isorhythmic Motets (Moretonhampstead, Devon, 1997), no.2

O sidus Yspanie

3

 

cantilena; St Anthony of Padua; TRmp 88; Ficker surmised that this was the motet O sidus Hispanie mentioned in Du Fay’s will; attribution rejected by most scholars; ed. in DTÖ, lxxvi, Jg. xl (1933/R), 75

secular

Seigneur Leon, vous soyes bienvenus/Benedictus qui venit

4

vi, 101

rondeau; attributed to Du Fay by Plamenac, 1954

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

lost works

Missa pro defunctis

3

 

copied as a newly composed work at Cambrai in 1470; mentioned in Du Fay’s will and in use at the ceremonies of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1507

Magnificat (7th mode)

 

 

copied at Cambrai 1462–3

?Laus tibi Christe

 

 

seq, St Mary Magdalene, copied at Cambrai 1463–4; assumed to have been this text

Officium defunctorum

4

 

reported to have been sung by the Order of the Golden Fleece, 1507 (Prizer)

O quam glorifica

 

 

hymn, copied at Cambrai 1463–4

Du Fay, Guillaume: Works

theoretical works

Musica

 

 

lost; cited in marginal annotations in I-PAp 1158 (see Gallo)

Tractatus de musica mensurata et de proportionibus

 

 

lost; reported by Fétis to have been in a 16th-century manuscript sold at auction in 1824 to an English bookseller

Du Fay, Guillaume

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A comprehensive bibliography to 1985 is given in D. Fallows, Dufay (London, 1982, 2/1987); the following bibliography contains only the most important studies up to that date

LockwoodMRF

SpataroC

StrohmR

J. Houdoy: Histoire artistique de la cathédrale de Cambrai (Paris and Lille, 1880/R)

F.X. Haberl: Bausteine für Musikgeschichte (Leipzig, 1885–8/R)

J., J.F.R. and C. Stainer: Dufay and his Contemporaries (London, 1898/R)

C. van den Borren: Guillaume Dufay: son importance dans l’évolution de la musique au XVe siècle (Brussels, 1925)

F. Baix: La carrière “bénéficiale” de Guillaume Dufay (vers 1398–1474): notes et documents’, Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome, viii (1928), 265–72

H. Besseler, ed.: Guillaume Dufay: zwölf geistliche und weltliche Lieder, Cw, xix (1932)

R. Gerber, ed.: Guillaume Dufay: sämtliche Hymnen, Cw, xlix (1937/R)

L. Feininger, ed.: Auctorum anonymorum missarum propria XVI quorum XI Gulielmo Dufay auctori adscribenda sunt, Monumenta polyphoniae liturgicae, 2nd ser., i (Rome, 1947)

G. De Van, ed.: Guglielmi Dufay opera omnia (Rome, 1947–9) [4 fascicles published of 20 planned: i: Motetti qui et cantiones vocantur (1947); ii: Motetti isorithmici dicti (1948); iii: Missa sine nomine (1949); iv:Missa Sancti Jacobi (1949)]

H. Besseler: Bourdon und Fauxbourdon (Leipzig, 1950, rev., enlarged 2/1974 by P. Gülke)

M. Bukofzer: Studies in Medieval & Renaissance Music (New York, 1950)

H. Besseler: Neue Dokumente zum Leben und Schaffen Dufays’, AMw, ix (1952), 159–76

D. Plamenac: An Unknown Composition by Dufay?’, MQ, xl (1954), 190–200 [Fr. trans., RBM, viii (1954), 75–83]

R. Bockholdt: Die frühen Messenkompositionen von Guillaume Dufay (Tutzing, 1960)

C. Hamm: The Manuscript San Pietro B80’, RBM, xiv (1960), 40–55

C. Hamm: Dating a Group of Dufay Works’, JAMS, xv (1962), 65–71

C. Hamm: A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay based on a Study of Mensural Practice (Princeton, NJ, 1964)

F.A. Gallo: Citazioni da una trattato di Dufay’, CHM, iv (1966), 149–52

M.-T. Bouquet: La cappella musicale dei duchi di Savoia dal 1450 al 1500’, RIM, iii (1968), 233–85

W. Nitschke: Studien zu den Cantus-firmus-Messen Guillaume Dufays (Berlin, 1968)

H. Schoop: Entstehung und Verwendung der Handschrift Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213 (Berne, 1971)

A.E. Planchart: Guillaume Dufay’s Masses: Notes and Revisions’, MQ, lviii (1972), 1–23

Dufay Conference: Brooklyn, NY, 1974

D. Fallows: Two more Dufay Songs Reconstructed’, EMc, iii (1975), 358–60

C. Monson: Stylistic Inconsistencies in a Kyrie attributed to Dufay’, JAMS, xxviii (1975), 245–67

C. Wright: Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions’, JAMS, xxviii (1975), 175–229

C. Wright: Performance Practices at the Cathedral of Cambrai, 1475–1550’, MQ, lxiv (1978), 295–328

R. Bockholdt: ‘Die Hymnen der Handschrift Cambrai 6: zwei unbekannte Vertonungen von Dufay?’, TVNM, xxix (1979), 75–91

M. Bent: The Songs of Dufay: some Questions of Authenticity’, EMc, viii (1980), 454–9

D. Fallows: Dufay (London, 1982, 2/1987)

D. Fallows: Dufay’s Most Important Work: Reflections on the Career of his Mass for St Anthony of Padua’, MT, cxxiii (1982), 467–70

D.M. Randel: Dufay the Reader’, Studies in the History of Music, i (1983), 38–78

D. Fallows: Dufay and the Mass Proper Cycles of Trent 88’, I codici musicali trentini: Trent 1985, 46–59

W.F. Prizer: Music and Ceremonial in the Low Countries: Philip the Fair and the Order of the Golden Fleece’, EMH, v (1985), 113–54

W. Arlt: Musik und Text’, Mf, xxxvii (1986), 272–80

M. Perz: The Lvov Fragments: a Source for Works of Dufay, Josquin, Petrus de Domarto, and Petrus Grudenca in 15th-Century Poland’, TVNM, xxxvi (1986), 26–51

R.C. Wegman: New Data concerning the Origins and Chronology of Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Manuscript 5557’, TVNM, xxxvi (1986), 5–25

A.W. Atlas: Gematria, Marriage Numbers, and Golden Sections in Dufay’s “Resveillies vous”’, AcM, lix (1987), 111–26

G.M. Boone: Dufay’s Early Chansons: Chronology and Style in the Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213 (diss., Harvard U., 1987)

J.E. Cumming: Concord out of Discord: Occasional Motets of the Early Quattrocento (diss., U. of California, Berkeley, 1987)

D. Fallows: The Contenance angloise: English Influence on Continental Composers of the Fifteenth Century’, Renaissance Studies, i (1987), 189–208

B. Haggh: The Celebration of the “Recollectio Festorum Beatae Mariae Virginis”, 1457–1987’, IMSCR XIV: Bologna 1987, iii, 559–71

G. Montagna: Caron, Hayne, Compère: a Transmission Reassessment’, EMH, vii (1987), 107–57

R.C. Wegman: The Twelfth Gathering of Brussels, Koninklijke Biblioteek, Manuscript 5557: a New Dufay Concordance’, Liber Amicorum Chris Maas, ed. R. Wegman and E. Vetter (Amsterdam, 1987), 15–25

D. Crawford: Guillaume Dufay, Hellenism, and Humanism’, Music from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek, ed. C.P. Comberiati and M.C. Steel (New York, 1988), 81–93

A.E. Planchart: Guillaume Du Fay’s Benefices and his Relationship to the Court of Burgundy’, EMH, viii (1988), 117–71

A.E. Planchart: What’s in a Name? Reflections on some Works of Guillaume Du Fay’, EMc, xvi (1988), 165–75

L. Nys: Un relief tournaisien conservé au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille: la stèle funeraire de Guillaume Dufay (+1474), chanoine de Notre-Dame de Cambrai’, Mémoires de la Société royale d’histoire et d’archéologie de Tournai, vi (1989), 5–24

E. Schroeder: Dissonance Placement and Stylistic Change in the Fifteenth Century: Tinctoris’s Rules and Dufay’s Practice’, JM, vii (1989), 366–89

R. Strohm: Messzyklen über deutsche Lieder in den Trienter Kodices’, Liedstudien: Wolfgang Osthoff zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. M. Just and R. Wiesend (Tutzing, 1989), 77–106

N. Gossen: Helas mon dueil, a ce cop sui je mort: Allgemeines und Besonderes in einem Chanson-Text von Guillaume Dufay’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xiv (1990), 37–57

A. Kirkman: Some Early Fifteenth-Century Fauxbourdons by Dufay and his Contemporaries: a Study in Liturgically-Motivated Musical Style’, TVNM, xl/1 (1990), 3–35

T. Brothers: Vestiges of the Isorhythmic Tradition in Mass and Motet, ca. 1450–1475’, JAMS, xliv (1991), 1–56

R. Nosow: The Equal Discantus Motet Style after Ciconia’, MD, xlv (1991), 221–75

R.C. Wegman: Petrus de Domarto’s Missa Spiritus almus and the Early History of the Four-Voice Mass in the Fifteenth Century’, EMH, x (1991), 235–303

J.M. Allsen: Style and Intertextuality in the Isorhythmic Motet, 1400–1440 (diss., U. of Wisconsin, 1992)

C.A. Reynolds: The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses’, JAMS, lxv (1992), 228–60

L. Lütteken: Guillaume Dufay und die isorhythmische Motette: Gattungstradition und Werkcharacter an der Schwelle der Neuzeit (Hamburg, 1993)

A.E. Planchart: The Early Career of Guillaume Du Fay’, JAMS, xlvi (1993), 341–68

J.E. Cumming: The Aesthetics of the Medieval Motet and Cantilena’, Historical Performance, vii (1994), 71–83

R.L. Gerber: Dufay’s Style and the Question of Cyclic Unity in the Trent 88 Mass Proper Cycles’, I codici musicali trentini: Trent 1994, 107–19

C. Wright: Dufay’s Nuper rosarum flores, King Solomon’s Temple, and the Veneration of the Virgin’, JAMS, xlvii (1994), 395–441

D. Fallows: The Songs of Guillaume Dufay: Critical Commentary to the Revision of Corpus mensurabilis musicae, ser. 1, vol. VI, MSD, xlvii (1995)

A.E. Planchart: Notes on Guillaume Du Fay’s Last Works’, JM, xiii (1995), 55–72

C.A. Reynolds: Papal Patronage and the Music of St Peter’s, 1380–1513 (Berkeley, 1995)

R.C. Wegman: Miserere-supplicanti-Dufay: the Creation and Transmission of Guillaume Dufay’s Missa Ave regina celorum’, JM, xiii (1995), 18–54

G. Boone: Tonal Color in Dufay’, Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. J.A. Owens and A. Cummings (Warren, MI, 1996), 57–99

A.E. Planchart: Guillaume Du Fay’s Second Style’, ibid., 307–40

T. Brothers: Chromatic Beauty in the Late Medieval Chanson: an Interpretation of Manuscript Accidentals (Cambridge, 1997)

B. Haggh: Guillaume Du Fay’s Birthplace: Some Notes on a Hypothesis’, RBM, li (1997), 17–21

L. Holford-Strevens: Du Fay the Poet? Problems in the Texts of the Motets’, EMH, xvi (1997), 97–165

A.E. Planchart: Music for the Papal Chapel in the Early Fifteenth Century’, Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome, ed. R. Sherr (Oxford, 1998), 93–124