Guillaume Dufay - Biography
Guillaume Dufay, probably the first indisputably great composer in Western music, was born circa 1397 in the Flemish town of Beersel and died there on November 27th, 1474. He was born out of wedlock to a woman named Marie Du Fayt and an unknown priest. He was evidently a choirboy in the Cambrai Cathedral in France and possibly studied under the well known musician, Nicolas Malin. Upon reaching maturity in 1418, he became a sub deacon of the Cathedral in Cambrai. His musical gifts brought him to Pesaro, Italy where he was employed by the patrician Maletesta family. There is evidence that his first compositions were written during his time in Italy.
In 1424, he returned to Cambria to deal with family issues. Two years later he returned to Italy, this time to Bologna, to become a music advisor to a powerful Cardinal, Louis Aleman. There he became a deacon of the church. Cardinal Aleman’s fortunes changed, however, and he was driven out of Bologna. In 1428, Dufay left for Rome. By then Dufay was an ordained priest and he became a member of the papal choir. He remained in the papal choir until 1433, when he seized a chance to move to a more prestigious position as musical advisor to the Duke of Savoy.
Pope Eugene moved the Papacy from Rome to Florence in 1434, due to an insurrection. Dufay rejoined the Florentine Papal Choir. Dufay wrote music that was performed in the renowned Cathedral of Florence. In this period, Dufay established an alliance with the musically influential Este family in Ferrara. The continuing battle in the hierarchy of the Church eventually led to Eugene being deposed in favor of a new Pope, Felix the Fifth. Dufay, who’d aligned himself with Eugene, moved back to Cambrai in 1439.
In order to become a member of the clerical hierarchy in Cambria, Dufay needed a law degree – which he eventually obtained from the University of Turin. Besides his musical duties in Cambria, he was often asked to adjudicate mercantile disputes. While in Cambria in the 1440s, he was commissioned by the Duke of Burgundy to revise the musical liturgy of the Cantons churches. During this period, the wounds of the church began to heal with the abdication of the so-called “anti-pope,” Felix the Fifth. As a result, Dufay freely moved back and forth between Turin and Cambria. He wanted a prominent position in Italy found obtaining one to be difficult. Some of his most famous compositions come from the period around 1450, including the four Lamentationes – one which he composed to commemorate the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453 – as well as his celebrated Mass Se la Face ay Pale.
During his last years, Dufay returned to Cambria to live out the remainder of his life. During this period, he was considered the most distinguished composer in Europe and revered by composers of the younger generation like Johannes Tinctoris, Johannes Ockeghem, and Antoine Busnois. During his waning years, Dufay wrote his well-known Missa L'homme armé. There was also believed to have been a Requiem from this period, which is now lost. Dufay was taken ill around his seventy-fifth or seventy sixth-year and died on November 27th, 1474. He was buried inside the Cathedral of Cambria. Originally his tombstone was thought to have been lost in the destruction of the cathedral, but eventually it was found being used to cover a well.
Dufay is considered one of the most important composers in the development of polyphony. Since the major part of his career occurred before the invention of printing, his compositions were copied by hand all over musical Europe. Of course, this led to many works being misattributed to Dufay during the centuries; current musical scholarship has settled these issues. Besides a massive amount of surviving church music, there are well over eighty secular chansons. Dufay, though a pioneer in the advancement of musical technique, to the untrained ear sounds like medieval music similar to plainchant. A number of distinguished recordings have been made of his music, particularly the wonderful recordings that David Munrow made in the 1970s for EMI with his London Consort.
