DUFAY, GUILLAUME. - Musician, b. around 1400 perhaps in the old county of Hainaut (Hannonia), d. at Cambrai on 27 Nov. 1474. In 1420 he received the degree of baccalarius in decretis and in 1428 he took holy orders. In Dec. 1428 he entered the papal chapel as a cantor, remaining there until June 1437 (except for a two-year absence, from 1433 to 1435, a period in which he was a chorister at the court of the Duke of Savoy, where he returned from 1437 to about 1444). From 1435 to 1437 he was with the papal chapel, under Eugene IV, at Florence. In 1436 he became a canon of the cathedral of Cambrai; between 1445 and 1450 he was a member of the musical chapel of the Duke of Burgundy; after 1450 he retired to Cambrai, where he spent a great part of his old age.
D.'s activity embraces various fields, from the liturgical to the secular, from the celebratory to the amorous, and his works can, according to C. Van Den Borren, be divided into 5 great groups: 1) masses and fragments of masses; 2) magnificat; 3) motets; 4) compositions on French texts; 5) compositions on Italian texts.
1) The mass Se la face ay pale, based on the tenor of a ballade by D. of the same title, of which a three-voice and a four-voice version survive, is contained in codices 88 of Trent and 14 of the Sistine Chapel, and has been printed recently (A. Orel, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, VII, Leipzig 1913, p. 120 ff.). This mass possesses uncommon merits of a uniform serenity that bring it, according to the critics, almost to the impersonal beauty of Gregorian chant; the nuances of color, obtained by means of a sober and gentler harmony, no longer have the harshness of the preceding centuries and not yet the pathos of the coloristic contrasts of future centuries. Its dating can be placed around the middle of the century. The other mass Caput can be attributed to the five-year period 1460-65. This second mass, contained in cod. 89 of Trent (ff. 264ᵛ and 265ᵛ), is based on a melody taken very probably from Gregorian chant, which serves as tenor also for a mass by Okeghem and one by Obrecht with the same title. To these two, the only ones published complete, must be added the mass Ecce ancilla Domini for 4 voices (cod. 14 Sistine Chapel, ff. 75-86) of 1463, of which R. G. Kiesewetter published the Benedictus for 2 voices (Geschichte der europäisch abendländischen oder unserer heutiger Musik, Leipzig 1834, p. 18, Musikbeilagen), and the mass L'homme armé (cod. 14 Sistine Chapel, ff. 99ᵛ and 103, Kyrie and Gloria; cod. 49, f. 35-54, entire). Other fragments of masses are in ms. 37 of Bologna (Liceo musicale), in ms. 2216 of the University of Bologna and in codices 90 and 92 of Trent.
2) Of the two magnificat (sexti toni et octavi toni) the text, set to music in its entirety and not in verses alternating with Gregorian chant, is preserved for us by codices 37 of the Liceo musicale of Bologna, A. X. 1, 11 of the Estense library of Modena, by cod. 92 of Trent and by cod. B. 80 of the archive of St. Peter's in Rome (Vatican Library).
3) Among the 24 published motets, C. Van Den Borren distinguishes: a) occasional motets; b) antiphons; c) a sequence; d) hymns. His classification is adopted here to point out some of the most salient compositions of D. The occasional motets are only two, namely: Basilissa ergo gaude, datable from 1419 to 1433, is for 4 voices and is composed on the gradual Concupivit rex of the mass of the Commune Virginum; it is found in cod. 37 of the Liceo musicale of Bologna, in 87 of Trent and in 213 of Oxford. The other, for 2-4 voices, is entitled Nuper rosarum flores in honor of St. Mary of the Flower and was composed for the inauguration of the cathedral of Florence (24 March 1436). It is found in cod. A. X. 1, 11 of the Biblioteca Estense of Modena and in 92 of Trent. b) Among the antiphons worthy of note are the Salve Regina for 4 voices (cod. 89 of Trent and in ms. 3154 of Munich [f. 86ᵛ], studied particularly by A. Orel in Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, VII) and the Ave Regina coelorum for 4 voices (cod. B. 80 of the archive of St. Peter's in Rome). D. had composed it about ten years before his death and chosen it to be performed at the moment of his agony, according to what he expressed in his will. c) The sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus for 3 voices (triplum). d) C. Van Den Borren points out in this category 13 hymns for 3 voices, published in the seventh volume of the Denkmäler, but they do not show the best of D., because they are for the most part in falsobordone, and rather meager as artistic-compositional substance in the genial and expressive sense.
4) Compositions on French texts. Of this group, subdivided further according to literary genres, the rondeaux are passed over, in order to recall the three famous ballades Je me complains pitement, Le jour s'endort and finally Se la face ay pale, an "équivoque" ballade, a genre based on plays on words (used also by J. Desprez in the Chanson se congiè prens, which served as the melodic-thematic nucleus for the homonymous mass by D.).
5) Of the compositions on Italian texts the most interesting is without doubt the one on the first stanza of Petrarch's canzone Vergine bella, which raises D.'s style to a very high level for inspiration and for plasticity of lines in the various vocal and instrumental planes, which in his music are superimposed and, almost without sharpness of boundaries, shade into one another. Here the mystical tone assumes new splendors of tints and D.'s art makes clearly shine forth his superiority over the preceding and contemporary artists, such as a Binchois, an Arnold de Lantins and even a Dufay.
The complete works, besides the edition begun by G. de Vars, are in the course of publication under the editorship of H. Besseler.