Du Fay, Guillaume (real name, Willem Du Fayt)

Du Fay, Guillaume (real name, Willem Du Fayt), great French composer; b. in or near Brussels, Aug. 5, 1397; d. Cambrai, Nov. 27, 1474. He was the illegitimate son of a priest, and thus took his mother’s name. By 1408 he was in Cambrai, where he received training from Jehan Rogier de Hesdin, one of the chaplains at Notre Dame. From 1409 to 1413 he was a chorister at Cambrai Cathedral, where he most likely continued his training under its magister puerorum, Richard de Loqueville. By 1414 he held a chaplaincy at the altar of the Salve at St. Gery. He was in Constance by 1415. By 1417 he was again at St. Gery, where he became a subdeacon in 1418. From 1420 to 1423 he was in Italy, where he most likely was in the service of the branch of the Malatesta family in Rimini. From about 1424 to 1426 he was a singer at Laon Cathedral. In 1426 he returned to Italy, where he was in the service of Louis Aleman, the governor of Bologna. He was in Rome as a singer in the papal choir (Dec. 1428-Aug. 1433), during which period he consolidated his reputation as one of the most significant musicians of his day. His motet Ecclesie militantis may have been composed for the consecration of Pope Eugene IV in 1431. He found a patron in Niccolo III, Marquis of Ferrara, in 1433, and made a visit to his court in May 1437. He also found a patron in Louis, Duke of Savoy. On Feb. 8, 1434, he served as maitre de chappelle for the marriage of Louis and Anne of Cyprus at the Savoy court. After a visit to Cambrai in Aug. 1434, he returned to Savoy. He was again a singer in the papal choir (June 1435-June 1437), which was maintained at this time in Florence until 1436, and then in Bologna. It was about this time that he received a degree in canon law from the Univ. of Turin. In 1436 he was made canon of Cambrai Cathedral. After again serving the Savoy court (1437–39), he returned to Cambrai in 1440 to assume his duties as canon. In 1446 he was also made canon of Ste. Waudru in Mons. In 1450 he returned to Italy. He visited Turin from May to July of that year and then was subsequently active in Savoy from 1451 to 1458, serving once more as maitre de chappelle at the court (May 1,1455-May 1,1456). In 1458 he returned to Cambrai, where he lived and worked in comfort for the rest of his life. He was held in the highest esteem in his lifetime by the church authorities and his fellow musicians; Compere described him as “the moon of all music, and the light of all singers.” He was the foremost representative of the Burgundian school of composition. He proved himself a master of both sacred and secular music, producing masses, motets, and chansons of extraordinary beauty and distinction. His contributions to the development of faux-bourdon and the cyclic mass are particularly noteworthy. A list of his works, including MS sources and approximate dates of composition, is found in C. Hamm’s A Chronology of the Works of Guillaume Dufay Based on a Study of Mensural Practice (Princeton, N.J., 1964). The Opera omnia, ed. by G. de Van and H. Besseler in the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae series, i/1–6 (1947–49; 1951–66), also contains valuable commentary. A compilation of the papers read at the Dufay Quincentennial Conference held at Brooklyn Coll. on Dec. 6–7,1974, was ed. by A. Atlas and publ. in 1976.

Bibliography

C. van den Borren, G. D.: Son importance dans revolution de la musique au XVs siecle (Brussels, 1925); R. Bockholdt, Diefruhen Messenkompositionen von G. D. (Tutzing, 1960);S. Brown, The Motets of Ciconia, Dunstable, and D. (diss., Ind. Univ., 1962); C. Hamm, A Chronology of the Works ofG. D. Based on a Study of Mensural Practice (Princeton, N.J., 1964); W. Nitschke, Studien zu den Cantus-Firmus-Messen G. D.s (Berlin, 1968); A. Atlas, ed., Papers Read at the D. Quincentenary Conference, Brooklyn Coll., December 6–7, 1974 (Brooklyn, 1976); D. Fallows, D. (London, 1982; rev. ed., 1987); S. Monge, ed., G. D. (Turin, 1997).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire