(b c1390; d 24 Dec 1453). English composer. He was the most eminent of an influential group of English composers active in the first half of the 15th century: his importance was internationally recognized, both during his lifetime and long after his death.
MARGARET BENT
Dunstaple’s earliest surviving works date from between about 1410 and 1420, which suggests a birthdate of about 1390. The date of death derives from his epitaph in the London church of St Stephen Walbrook (destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666), which was reinstated in the church (1904) in a version adapted from Anthony Munday’s transcription printed in a late edition of Stowe’s Survey of London (London, 1618 and subsequent editions). John of Wheathampstead, abbot of St Albans, may have been its author, as he was of a second epitaph. From these epitaphs (printed below) we learn that he was esteemed as a mathematician and astronomer as well as a musician. He is not known to have written a treatise, but his name is attached to a tetrachordal tenor appended to two copies of a music theory treatise. Of three non-musical manuscripts naming him, the most important (GB-Ce 70) contains mostly astrological works, some of which apparently bear his scribal signature, and one of which also contains a series of good astrological drawings that may be in his hand. His astronomical calculations (for instance in GB-Ob Laud misc.674) show high competence but no more originality than any of his contemporaries.
Dunstaple’s name is linked to the service of several noble or royal households, with varying degrees of substantiation. The first of these is indicated in one fascicle of an astronomy manuscript (GB-Cjc) F.25 (M.R. James 162) which bears the note of ownership ‘Iste libellus pertinebat Johanni Dunstaple cà [?cum or quondam] duci Bedfordie musico’, that is, that he was musician to John, Duke of Bedford (d 1435). Although the advowson of St Stephen, Walbrook, was owned by Bedford until 1432, and the town of Dunstable is in Bedfordshire (the composer’s name is the sole reason for positing a connection), the sole and indirect archival corroboration that Dunstaple was ever in the service of the duke is provided by grants of lands in Normandy, the first of them in 1437 of former Bedford lands. These grants may give substance to the theory that Dunstaple travelled abroad. It is possible that he accompanied Bedford during his regency of France from 1422, but any service with the duke must have preceded 1427/8, unless it overlapped with the patronage of the dowager Queen Joan, whose gifts and payments to Dunstaple span the period from 1427 to 1436, and probably up to her death in 1437. Tax records from 1436 indicate that he had significant income from property in Cambridgeshire, Essex and London, and a large annuity from Queen Joan, from whom he received a gift and livery in 1428. After her death he was connected with Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: a document of 5 July 1438 describes him as ‘serviteur et familier domestique’ of the duke. There are other reports – increasingly plausible – of a man of this name as a gentleman of Cambridgeshire in 1436 and as owner of the Hertfordshire manor of Broadfield in 1449. Such indications of lay status may have excluded him from service as a chaplain but are not incompatible with these manifestations of royal patronage, which are silent as to function.
Dunstaple must have been acquainted at St Albans with his obituarist, Abbot John of Wheathampstead, who in turn was closely associated with Duke Humfrey and Queen Joan, and with Italian humanist circles. Humfrey’s connection with Leonello d’Este may account for the presence of much of Dunstaple’s music in a Ferrarese manuscript (I-MOe α.X.1.11). He had presumably resided in the parish of St Stephen Walbrook, where he was buried, and where he held rents from at least 1445. If he was married (as may be suggested by the presence of women of this name in the parish), this further eliminates clerical and monastic candidates for his identity (including John Dunstapylle, canon of Hereford 1419–40; a Benedictine at St Albans; and an Augustinian at Dunstable Priory).
The Latin epitaph in St Stephen’s Walbrook described him as ‘prince of music’. It included the words ‘In the year 1453, on the day before Christ’s birthday, the star passed over into the heavens’:
Clauditur
hoc tumulo qui coelum pectore clausit
Dunstaple Joannes. Astrorum conscius ille
Indice novit Urania abscondita pandere coeli.
Hic vir erat tua laus, tua lux, tibi musica princeps,
Quique tuas dulces per mundum sparserat artes.
Anno Mil C. quater semel L. tria jungito Christi
Pridie natalem, sidus transmigrat ad astra.
Suscipiant proprium civem coeli sibi cives.
A second epitaph ‘upon John Dunstable, an astrologian, a mathematician, a musitian, and what not’ – thus headed by Weever, who reported it in his Antient Funerall Monuments (1631) as the tribute of John of Wheathampstead – begins ‘This musician, another Michalus, this new Ptolemy, this younger Atlas supporting the arc of the heavens, rests beneath the ashes’:
Musicus
hic Michalus alter, novusque Ptholomeus,
Junior ac Athlas supportans robore celos
Pausat sub cinere; melior vir de muliere
Numquam natus erat; vicii quia labe carebat,
Et virtutibus opes possedit vincus omnes.
Cur exoptetur, sic optandoque precetur
Perpetuis annis celebratur fama Johannis
Dunstapil; in pace requiescat et hic sine fine.
Dunstaple’s pre-eminence was noted in about 1440 by Martin le Franc, in a famous passage implying that he had by then reached the height of his powers in so far as they were to influence continental composers. He was hailed as the chief exponent of a sweet new English style, and indeed as the founder of a new musical age. Tinctoris mentioned Dunstaple three times. He declared in 1477 that only music written during the last 40 years was considered by the learned to be worth hearing. Whereas Martin le Franc seems to have stressed the dependence of Du Fay and Binchois upon Dunstaple, Tinctoris named Ockeghem, Regis, Busnoys, Caron and Faugues as having learnt their art from all three earlier men. Dunstaple heads the lists of celebrities given by the English Carmelite, John Hothby, and by a Spanish theorist of 1482, who followed Tinctoris in dating the ‘new art’ or ‘great flowering’ from about 1440. He is named in Crétin’s Déploration on the death of Ockeghem and Eloy d’Amerval’s Livre de la deablerie (1508) where, in a vision of paradise, the poet saw the great musicians, directed by Dunstaple and Du Fay, composing hymns of praise for the angels to sing. Gaffurius mentioned Dunstaple in his Practica musica (1496), quoting the tenor of Veni Sancte Spiritus (no.32) and citing him as an authority for the use of passing notes. Giovanni Del Lago referred in a letter to Spataro (1529; see Spataro C, letter 28, paragraph 12) to motet tenors by Dunstaple, specifically mentioning Veni Sancte Spiritus (no.32) and Preco preheminencie (no.29).
Dunstaple alone came to be credited with innovations for which the English school as a whole was responsible: Tinctoris had described him as ‘primus inter pares’ (‘first among equals’). Achievements of preceding centuries also came to be ascribed to him. This arose from a misreading of Tinctoris by Sebald Heyden (1540) who, believing valid polyphony to be only a century old, ascribed its invention to Dunstaple, who thence became known as the ‘inventor of counterpoint’. This led to further confusion with the 10th-century English saint Dunstan which was put right by Hawkins. The claim that Dunstaple wrote a musical treatise (as Hawkins also believed) was first made by Ravenscroft (1614), but his ‘quotation’ is in fact translated from the treatise Quatuor principalia of 1351, ascribed in one source to Tunstede: Ravenscroft presumably confused the latter with Dunstaple. Two copies of Johannes de Muris’s Libellus cantus mensurabilis ascribe the final music example to Dunstaple (no.29): this might have appeared to apply to the whole treatise.
Most of the known references to Dunstaple were assembled by Lederer and Davey. Bukofzer presented this material in more critical fashion, but his main contribution to Dunstaple scholarship was in assembling and editing the musical works.
Of the works listed below, no more than 22 are known to have been copied in English sources. Most of Dunstaple’s extant music is known from the large Italian and German manuscript collections now at Trent (I-TRmp, TRcap: 41 pieces plus duplicates), Modena (MOe: 32), Aosta (AO: 24), Bologna (Bc: 6; Bu: 2216), Munich (D-Mbs: 6) besides smaller sources. This led to the once popular assumption that Dunstaple must have spent part of his life in Italy. Archival searches have not confirmed this hypothesis, which has also been weakened by recent discoveries of further English sources, and by new biographical connections in France and England.
52 items bear uncontradicted ascriptions to Dunstaple. The remaining works listed are either unascribed or have conflicting ascriptions in different sources. Many other works surviving in continental manuscripts are anonymous or labelled simply ‘Anglicanus’ or ‘de Anglia’. More works by Dunstaple are undoubtedly camouflaged in this way, and his authorship of the Caput Mass formerly attributed to Du Fay cannot be ruled out. Stylistic analysis does not yet form a secure basis for attributing these to individual composers, except in rare cases. Distinct personal styles are only beginning to emerge: it is not always easy to distinguish between the continental survivals of Leonel Power and Dunstaple. The uncommonly high number of contradictory ascriptions to these two men served to fuel the long-discredited notion that they were one and the same composer. A similar identity was once proposed for Dunstaple and Benet.
Three works not printed in MB, viii (2/1970), are shown in the list of works below: a Magnificat, the ballade Je languis, and the carol I pray you all (whose text is marked ‘quod J.D.’). The great bulk of the English carol repertory is anonymous, but it is highly probable, on statistical and stylistic grounds, that Dunstaple wrote some. (Note, for example, the carol-like phrase structure of the Gloria settings, nos.4 and 7.) Both the Magnificat and the ballade have also been attributed to Du Fay. Two further pieces are included in the list of works although they are apparently not extant. One is another Magnificat, described as ‘Dunstabylls Exultavit’ in an inventory dated 1529 from King’s College, Cambridge. The other, also a late copy, is the Gaude flore virginali in five parts, with a range of 21 notes, recorded in the index of the Eton Choirbook but no longer surviving in the main part of that manuscript. (Several anonymous settings of this text survive: one which fits this description occurs in the same manuscript as another Dunstaple work, and is credibly Etonian, like the description itself, if unlike any known work by Dunstaple.) A now lost four-part motet on a Nesciens mater tenor was known to Morley, who complained that Dunstaple had ‘not only divided the sentence but in the very middle of a word hath made two long rests’ (Plaine and Easie Introduction, 1597). In addition to evidence of lost works from inventories, an unicum survives in a late copy in the 16th-century Henry VIII’s Manuscript (GB-Lbl Add.31922).
But doubt exists even in works which bear ascriptions to Dunstaple; too little is yet known of the authority and interdependence of sources. For example, Bukofzer gave the Mass Rex seculorum to Dunstaple because he regarded Aosta as more reliable than the composite Trent sources where it is assigned to Leonel Power; yet six pieces with unique attributions in Trent should, by the same logic, come under suspicion. Parts of these sources are closely related and do not have independent authority. Bukofzer elsewhere accepted the joint authority of Aosta and Trent (Leonel) over that of Modena (Dunstaple) to give an Alma redemptoris to Leonel. But if Modena were consistent in its attributions to composers, Dunstaple would by the same reasoning lose eight of his 12 isorhythmic motets, perhaps to Leonel who apparently wrote none. Even unique, uncontradicted ascriptions may thus not be reliable. Bukofzer accepted the attribution of O rosa bella to Dunstaple, although it is stylistically suspect and probably by Bedyngham.
Very little has been done towards a chronology on the basis of musical style, and precise datings for individual pieces are elusive. There is evidence of a Preco preheminencie and Veni Sancte Spiritus being performed in 1416; at least the former may have been Dunstaple’s setting. Henry VI’s coronation in Paris in 1422 has been suggested as the occasion for Veni Sancte Spiritus (no.32) and the Mass Da gaudiorum premia. Yet the position of the former in the Old Hall Manuscript suggests a date before 1420, and the mass, which uses a Trinity respond, may as well have been written for the marriage of Henry V and Catherine Valois on Trinity Sunday 1420, shortly after the Treaty of Troyes, to which the text is well suited. A few pieces, including Quam pulchra es (no.44), can be dated before 1430 because they are already present in manuscripts compiled by or around this date. If these are early works, it is hard to find any advance in isorhythmic treatment, declamation, and sonorous, consonant writing in his, presumably, later ones.
The most recent addition to Dunstaple’s work-list is a unique example of an accompanied canon four-in-one (Bent, 1996), which originally headed the Gloria section of a royal choirbook (partially reconstructed by Bent, 1984) in a position corresponding to that of Roy Henry’s Gloria in the Old Hall Manuscript. Sonorities with 3rds are a conspicuous feature, though there are none in the final cadence.
Bukofzer defined seven categories for the stylistic classification of Dunstaple’s works (most recently in NOHM, iii, 186). These are in fact partly structural, partly stylistic. They often overlap or adjoin and may be simplified as in the following discussion.
Isorhythm: a plainchant tenor is the lowest of three or four parts (except in Salve schema sanctitatis). The isorhythm may apply to the tenor only (as in the mass settings and Specialis virgo) or to all voices (as in most of the motets). Sometimes there is an introduction or postlude external to the isorhythmic structure. The motets usually have three sections with tenor reduction in the ratio 3:2:1 or 6:4:3, each subdivided into two or three taleae. The traditional conflicting texts, so alien to later declamatory principles of textual projection, are retained in all the motets except Specialis virgo, though they are often related by vivid alliteration (as in Preco preheminencie principe precessit/Precursor premittitur).
Plainchant basis but non-isorhythmic: the plainchant may be in any of the three parts (see list of works). If the chant is in an upper voice it is more likely to be ornamented (e.g. Ave regina celorum, Regina celi).
‘Free treble’ or ‘ballade’ style: compositions with a freely composed melodic line and two slower supporting parts form the greater part of Dunstable’s output, and it is probably on these that his innovating reputation depends. Traces of plainchant paraphrase are, however, constantly turning up in apparently ‘free’ trebles (Kyries nos.69 and 71, Alma redemptoris, no.40, Descendi in ortum meum, no.73, Veni Sancte Spiritus, no.32).
Declamation: the music of Quam pulchra es (no.44) is conceived as a vehicle for the clear presentation of the text. Accentuation is careful, and most syllables fall simultaneously. No other piece is declamatory to this degree. Short passages in Salve regina mater mire (ex.1a) and Sancta Dei genitrix are textually focussed in only two and one voices respectively. Descendi in ortum meum, probably a late work, shows staggered declamation, as in ex.1b.
The main initiative towards linking pairs of mass movements, and eventually to unifying all movements of the Ordinary by the use of a single tenor, seems to have been taken jointly by Dunstaple and Power (though the early cyclic masses are badly plagued by conflicting ascriptions). Of the pairings presented by Bukofzer, only two bear scrutiny, and these may be remnants of complete mass cycles, dismembered by accidents of copying and survival, as can now be shown for the Mass Da gaudiorum premia, which now lacks only the Agnus Dei of a five-movement cycle. Many apparent pairings of Gloria and Credo, Sanctus and Agnus, may be accentuated by a continental scribal habit of pairing movements even when they have no intrinsic connection, and also by their failure to record many troped Kyries belonging to English masses. The natural affinity between, respectively, syllabic and melismatic movements may effectively disguise loosely unified cyclic masses. Dunstaple applied isorhythmic procedures in two of the cycles (or partial cycles) for which his authorship is uncontradicted. Another pair (nos.11 and 12), in four parts, is linked by parallel structure (vocal scoring and mensurations). The Mass Rex seculorum bases all five movements on a common tenor in different rhythmic dispositions. The tenor of the Mass (nos.71, 56–9) shows considerable melodic freedom as well. There is, as yet, no use of unifying mottos in the upper parts.
The techniques of composition outlined above give little impression of Dunstaple’s personal dialect of the English musical language (in so far as it can be extricated from that of his contemporaries and disciples), which is evident over the whole range of his compositions.
What then characterized the contenance angloise (see Martin le Franc, and D. Fallows, Renaissance Studies, i, 1987, pp.189–208) as it was practised by Dunstaple? The melodic lines of his upper voices are made up of at least four types of movement: a basically conjunct progression with few leaps, short note values and virtually no rhythmic tautology (as in ex.2a). The conjunct motion may alternate with 3rds, creating interesting asymmetrical patterns, and with a similar avoidance of rhythmic tautology (ex.2a, bars 64–6, and ex.2b). Again, the movement may be largely triadic, with very little stepwise movement, and usually perceptibly slower than the more conjunct lines (as in ex.2c). The melodic line often unfolds very gradually, exploring all the possibilities of the notes first presented before higher or lower ones are added. A rising triadic phrase (ex.2d, or variants upon it), often rising to the major 6th, opens many of Dunstaple’s compositions. Finally, he sometimes used a declamatory line with many repeated notes, often syllabic in texting, but not necessarily well declaimed by later standards (ex.2e).
In combining voices, we may find an interplay that is almost hocket-like (as in ex.3a). Rhythmic imitation is a natural consequence of this relationship, but is rarely extended for more than two bars. The few examples of pitch imitation are confined to one bar, even when the imitation could have been continued: Dunstaple clearly did not regard imitation as a virtue to be practised wherever possible (ex.3b, involving three of the four voices, is one of the most advanced examples). This kind of textural interplay is sometimes found in conjunction with the declamatory and triadic types of melodic line, as in ex.3c, where the declamatory style is applied to the textless Amen.
To the modern ear, the harmony is predominantly major in sound. 3rds often seem to be ends in themselves while in contemporary continental music they are still straining for resolution. The so-called ‘pan-consonant’ style (Quam pulchra es, no.44, and Sancta Maria non est, no.48, provide good examples) owes much to the harmonic use of the 3rd to yield maximum sonority, as well as to its melodic use in exposed positions (ex.1a). Dissonances are handled with care especially in relation to the tenor (those in ex.3c arise only between the middle two parts and result from independence of line; in ex.3b this independence in the upper parts is taken further: bars 70–71 are unusually rough, but the sources are unanimous in this reading).
Much of Dunstaple’s music is in three parts; the isorhythmic motets are mostly for four. Lengthy duets occur within all styles (though not always in shorter pieces) and may occupy as much as a third of a composition. It is in duets that the English handling of discant is seen at its most perfect, with a high proportion of vertical 3rds and 6ths (characteristic intervals in any case between discantus and tenor parts in English compositions), but rarely more than three or four successive parallel intervals (ex.3d). In the duets between the upper voices of isorhythmic motets, parallel motion is often avoided by crossing of parts. Duets and full sections (marked in some manuscripts for soloists and chorus respectively) are often contrasted by the use of faster note values and harmonic rhythm for the former.
Although the two lower parts of a three-part piece may be virtually equal in range, the contratenor tends to be higher in tessitura and more rhythmically active than in average contemporary continental pieces. This may be linked with an English tendency to supply text for low-lying second upper parts that are not true contratenors in some mass settings, text which was usually ignored by continental scribes who construed them as contratenor parts.
The overwhelming majority of Dunstaple’s works start in triple time. Duple-time openings are confined to four mass movements, plus the canonic Gloria, one antiphon and O rosa bella. Except in a few short pieces (and the longer, anonymous Credo, no.10), which are in triple time throughout, there is usually a change to duple time about midway, and there may also be a shorter, final return to triple time towards the end.
Edition: John Dunstable: Complete Works, ed. M.F. Bukofzer, MB, viii (1953, rev. 2/1970 by M. Bent, I. Bent and B. Trowell adding nos.36a, 69–73) [MB]
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Title |
Voices |
No. in MB |
Remarks |
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Gloria, Credo |
4 |
11, 12 |
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Gloria, Credo |
3 |
15, 16 |
Isorhythmic; on ‘Jesu Christe Fili Dei’ |
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Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus |
3 |
69, 72, 17, 18 |
Isorhythmic; on ‘Da gaudiorum premia’; Sanctus anon. |
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Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei |
3 |
70, 19–22 |
Cyclic mass on ‘Rex seculorum’; also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei |
3 |
71, 56–9 |
Cyclic mass; also attrib. Benet and Leonel Power |
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Kyrie |
3 |
1 |
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Kyrie |
3 |
65 |
One v survives complete, the others are fragmentary (see Bent, 1981) |
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Gloria |
3 |
2 |
?Scribal pairing with Credo no.10 |
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Gloria |
3 |
3 |
Also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Gloria |
3 |
4 |
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Gloria |
3 |
7 |
Scribal pairing with Credo no.8 |
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Gloria |
3 |
9 |
Trope: ‘Spiritus et alme’; ?scribal pairing with Credo no.10 |
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Gloria |
?6 |
— |
One v survives for canon four-in-one (with rubric and attribution); one or two accompanying voices are lacking (ed. in Bent, 1996) |
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Credo |
3 |
5 |
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Credo |
3 |
8 |
Scribal pairing with Gloria no.7 |
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Credo |
3 |
10 |
Anon.; scribal pairing with Gloria no.2 or Gloria no.9 |
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Sanctus |
3 |
6 |
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Sanctus |
3 |
68 |
Anon.; scribal pairing with Agnus Dei no.14 |
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Sanctus |
3 |
13 |
Sanctus melody Sarum no.2 in third voice |
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Agnus Dei |
3 |
14 |
Agnus Dei melody Sarum no.5 in third voice |
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Alma redemptoris |
3 |
40 |
Marian ant for Vespers and processions; also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Alma redemptoris |
3 |
60 |
Marian ant for Vespers and processions; also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Ascendit Christus |
3 |
61 |
Marian ant for Assumption BVM and processions; also attrib. Forest; plainchant ‘Alma redemptoris’ in third voice |
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Ave maris stella |
3 |
35 |
Hymn to the BVM; plainchant in third voice |
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Ave regina celorum, ave domina |
3 |
37 |
Marian ant; plainchant in third voice |
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Beata Dei genitrix |
3 |
41 |
Marian ant for Lauds, Vespers and processions; also attrib. Binchois |
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Beata mater |
3 |
42 |
Marian ant for Nativity of the BVM and other occasions; also attrib. Binchois |
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Crux fidelis |
3 |
39 |
Ant for Saturday after Trinity Sunday, sung before the Cross; plainchant in second (also first) voice |
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Descendi in ortum meum |
4 |
73 |
Marian ant |
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Gaude flore virginali |
5 |
— |
Not extant; see §3 above |
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Gaude virgo Katerina |
3 |
52 |
Seq to St Catherine |
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Gloria sanctorum |
3 |
43 |
Seq to the BVM |
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Magnificat (2 versions) |
3 |
36, 36a |
Plainchant of canticle in first voice; 2nd version alternatim |
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Magnificat |
? |
— |
Not extant; see §3 above |
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Magnificat |
3 |
— |
Also attrib. Du Fay; attrib. ‘Dunstable’ in D-Mbs |
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O crux gloriosa |
3 |
53 |
Processional ant sung before the cross, Vespers Saturday after Trinity Sunday |
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Quam pulchra es |
3 |
44 |
Processional ant to the BVM; ‘Dunstapell’ erased, ‘Egidius’ added, in I-AO |
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(see Binchois, gilles de bins dit) |
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Regina celi |
3 |
38 |
Marian ant; plainchant in first voice |
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Salve mater salvatoris |
3 |
62 |
Seq to the BVM; also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Salve regina mater mire |
3 |
45 |
Marian ant; trope of ‘Salve regina’ |
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Salve regina mater misericordie |
3 |
63 |
Trope: ‘Virgo mater’; also attrib. Leonel Power |
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Salve regina misericordie |
3 |
46 |
Marian ant; trope: ‘Virgo mater’ |
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Sancta Dei genitrix |
3 |
47 |
For the Office, All Saints’ Day |
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Sancta Maria, non est tibi similis |
3 |
48 |
Processional respond and ant to the BVM |
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Sancta Maria, succurre miseris |
3 |
49 |
Marian ant for the Magnificat |
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Speciosa facta es |
3 |
50 |
Processional ant to the BVM |
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Sub tuam protectionen |
3 |
51 |
Marian ant for Vespers of the Conception and Nativity of the BVM; 2 keyboard arrs. in the Buxheim Organbook (MB, nos.51a–b) |
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Albanus roseo rutilat/Quoque ferendus eras/Albanus domini laudans |
3 |
23 |
To St Alban; ant ‘Primus in anglorum’ from rhymed Office ‘Inclita martyrii’ in T |
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Ave regina celorum, ave decus/Ave mater expers paris/Ave mundi spes Maria |
3 |
24 |
To the BVM; seq ‘Ave mundi spes’ in T |
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Christe sanctorum decus/Tibi Christe splendor Patris/Tibi Christe |
3 |
25 |
To St Michael; hymn ‘Tibi Christe splendor Patris’ in T |
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Dies dignus decorari/Demon dolens dum domatur/Iste confessor |
3 |
26 |
To St Germanus; hymn ‘Iste confessor’ (Vespers for Nativity of a Confessor) in T |
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Gaude felix Anna/Gaude mater matris Christe/Anna parens |
3 |
27 |
To St Anne; verse of respond ‘Matronarum hec matrona’ from rhymed Office ‘Felix Anna’ in T |
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Gaude virgo salutata/Gaude virgo singularis/Virgo mater comprobaris/Ave gemma |
4 |
28 |
Seq to BVM |
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Preco preheminencie/Precursor premittitur/[textless]/Inter natos mulierum |
4 |
29 |
Ant ‘Inter natos’ from Nativity of St John the Baptist in T |
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Salve schema sanctitatis/Salve salus servulorum/Cantant celi agmina/[textless] |
4 |
30 |
To St Catherine; T from repetenda of respond ‘Virgo flagellatur’ |
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Specialis virgo/Specialis virgo/Salve parens |
3 |
31 |
T from seq ‘Post partum Virgo Maria’ (Assumption of the BVM) |
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Veni Sancte Spiritus et emitte/Veni Sancte Spiritus et infunde/Veni Creator Spiritus/Mentes tuorum |
4 |
32 |
Hymn ‘Veni Creator’ for Whitsunday |
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Veni Sancte Spiritus et emitte/Consolator optime/Sancti Spiritus assit |
3 |
33 |
Hymn ‘Veni Creator’ and sequence ‘Sancti Spiritus assits’ for Whitsunday |
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[textless] |
3 |
34 |
Bukofzer supplies editorially the text of the Marian ant ‘Nesciens mater’ |
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[textless] |
? |
66 |
Only T survives (in treatise) |
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Nesciens mater |
4 |
67 |
Fragment of T only (rhythmicized plainchant) quoted by Morley in Plaine and Easie Introduction (London, 1597), p.178; probably from isorhythmic motet |
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Durer ne puis |
3 |
64 |
Rondeau; also attrib. Bedyngham |
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I pray you all |
2 |
— |
Carol; anon., but attrib. ‘J.D.’ in earliest source; ed. in MB, iv (1952), no.15 (=65) |
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Je languis en piteux martire |
3 |
— |
Ballade; Dunstaple’s name erased and replaced by that of Du Fay ‘Dumstable’ (I-TRmp 92) |
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O rosa bella (? L. Giustiniani) |
3–6 |
54 |
Modified ballata; more plausibly attrib. Bedyngham; exceptionally widely copied and recomposed; 2 keyboard arrs. in Buxheim Organbook (MB, nos.54a–b) |
|
Puisque m’amour |
3 |
55 |
Rondeau; 1 keyboard arr. (Buxheim Organbook) and 4 different 2-part versions (in GB-Lbl Titus A XXVI) survive (MB, nos.55a–b) |
HarrisonMMB
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