Guillaume Dufay

Nationality: Flemish

Born: Near Brussels, 5 August 1397

Died: Cambrai, 27 November 1474

Specialist Genres: Polyphonic Sacred music, Secular music

Major works: Motets, Masses, Songs

Guillaume Dufay was born as an illegitimate son of a priest and became a choirboy at Cambrai cathedral. C1420 he moved to serve the malatesta family in Italy. It seems he may have returned from Italy in the 1420's to hold various posts in Churches in Cambrai but in 1428 he became a singer in the papal choir in Rome. He returned to Cambrai in 1436 when he became a cannon at the cathedral.

In the mid 15^th Century Dufay was regarded as the leading composer in Europe by his contemporaries. There are around 200 surviving compositions by Dufay. Many of these works are harmonizations of liturgical chants, there are 8 complete Masses, hymns, antiphons, Motets and over 80 songs.

A lot of his works are based on Cantus Firmus, a plainsong melody or a popular secular song. An example is the folk tune L'homme arme (the armed man) on which Dufay based his most famous Mass. This same tune was used by other composers in the 15^th 16^th and 17^th Centuries.

It is said he is the first person to write a Requiem Mass, just four years before his death. The Manuscript of the work was lost.

 

Guillaume de Machaut

Nationality: French

Born: c1300, Machaut

Died: Rheims, April 1377

Specialist Genres: Sacred 

 music, Secular music

Major works: Notre-Dame mass, Motets, Secular 

songs.

Guillaume de Machaut was one of the most important composers of the 14^th Century, composing a great deal more than any of his contemporaries in this period. His works also varied greatly in style.

He served John, King of Bohemia from c1323 and acted as a courtier, travelling around Europe until the King was killed at the battle of Crecy in 1346. After John's death, Guillaume continued to serve the French Nobility, including King Charles V. He composed the Mass for his coronation.

His music is divided between sacred and secular music. The Notre-Dame Mass is his most famous piece but he also wrote over 20 Motets. His secular music includes ballades, rondeaux and virelays, which were the main types of vocal music at the time. His music is of the “Ars Nova” movement, or “new style” and often had complex Rhythms.

He was a virtual contemporary of Chaucer, and inspired some of his poetry.

The Notre-Dame School

Nationality: French

Active: Leonin, 1163-1190, Perotin, 1200-

Specialist Genres: Early polyphonic sacred music

 

Major works: 'Magnus Liber', Motets and Graduals

Leonin and Perotin are the only names known of a group of medieval composers who worked in Paris at the end of the 12^th Century and the first part of the 13^th century. The names were passed down by an English student known as Anonymous IV who was in Notre Dame in the later part of the 13^th Century.

Magnus Liber is credited to Leonin, it means 'the great book' and was written to be used by the choir of the new cathedral. He was described as “the best composer for Organum for the amplification of divine service”. (An Organum is a plainchant melody with at least one added voice to enhance the harmony). It is suggested that Leonin was one of the first composers to indicate rhythm as well as pitch in his musical notation.

Less is known about Perotin, but it's thought he revised the Magnus Liber and may have been a pupil of Leonin. Perotin was active in the creation of the four voice Motet. The development of three and four voice polyphony is one of the most important stages of musical history.

His surviving works include 'Two Graduals in four voices for the Christmas season”, approximately 12 liturgical works in three voices, and roughly 160 'Clausulae', which are polyphonic passages written to be attached to plainsong.

Hildegard of Bingen

  

Nationality: German

Born: 1098, Bockelheim

Died: September 17, 1179, Bingen

Specialist Genres: Plainsong settings of her poetry

Major works: Ordo Virturtum, Symphonia armonie 

celestium revelationum

Hildegard was born into a noble German family in 1098 although the exact date is uncertain and is one of the earliest known composers. She was considered to be the 10^th child of Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim and was dedicated to the church as a tithe. When she was 8 years old she was sent to the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. In 1136 she became an abbess and around the age of 50 she founded a nunnery near Bingen in the Rhine valley. She is often referred to as a saint and there is a feast day celebrated in Germany on September 17. In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a doctor of the church.

Hildegard wrote a great deal of lyrical poetry which was collected in the volume called Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum. 

 

Ordo Virturtum is the earliest surviving morality play (thought to have been written around 1151) and has music attached to it, which is written in German neumatic notation. The play consists of monophonic melodies the 'Anima' (the human soul) and 16 virtues.

In addition to Ordo Virturtum, there are are 69 musical compositions by Hildegard that have survived, each accompanied by an original poetic text. This is considered to be one of the largest surviving repertoires by a medieval composer.

Her music was not strictly in the style of monastic plainsong, exemplified by her decorated melodies and originality.

In recent decades early music has seen a considerable revival and in 1984 an album consisting of Hildegard's music called “A feather on the breath of God” was released and became very popular.