DUFAY, GUILLAUME. – Musician, b. around 1400, perhaps in the former county of Hainaut (Hannonia), d. at Cambrai on 27 November 1474. In 1420 he received the degrees of baccalarius in decreti and in 1428 entered holy orders. In December 1428 he joined the papal chapel as a singer, remaining there until June 1437 (apart from a two-year absence, from 1433 to 1435, during which he was a chorister at the court of the Duke of Savoy, where he returned from about 1437 to 1444). From 1435 to 1437 he was with the papal chapel, under Eugene IV, in Florence. In 1436 he became a canon of Cambrai Cathedral; 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 much of his old age.
D.’s activity extended across various fields, from the liturgical to the secular, from the celebratory to the amorous, and his works may, according to C. Van Den Borren, be divided into five major groups: 1) masses and fragments of masses; 2) magnificat; 3) motets; 4) compositions with French texts; 5) compositions with Italian texts.
1) The mass Se la face ay pale, based on the tenor of a ballade by D. with the same title, of which a three-voice and a four-voice version survive, is contained in cod. 88 of Trent and cod. 14 of the Sistine Chapel, and was recently printed (A. Orel, Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, VII, Leipzig 1913, pp. 120 ff.). This mass possesses uncommon merits of uniform serenity that bring it, according to the critics, almost close to the impersonal beauty of Gregorian chant; the nuances of color, achieved through a restrained and gentler harmony, no longer have the harshness of the preceding centuries, yet do not possess the pathos of the coloristic contrasts of later centuries. It may be dated to around the middle of the century. The other mass, Caput, may be assigned 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, in all likelihood, from Gregorian chant, which likewise serves as the tenor for a mass by Okeghem and one by Obrecht with the same title. To these two, the only ones published in their entirety, must be added the mass Ecce oncilla Domini for four voices (cod. 14, Sistine Chapel, ff. 75–86), from 1463, of which R. G. Kiesewetter published the two-voice Benedictus (Geschichte der europäisch abentändischen 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, ff. 35–54, complete). Other fragments of masses are found in MS 37 of Bologna (Liceo musicale), MS 2216 of the University of Bologna, and cods. 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 alternating verses with Gregorian chant, is preserved in cod. 37 of the Liceo musicale of Bologna, A. X. 1, 11 of the Estense Library of Modena, cod. 92 of Trent, and cod. B. 80 of the archive of S. Pietro 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 in order to indicate some of D.’s most notable compositions. There are only two occasional motets, namely: Basilissa ergo gunde, datable from 1419 to 1433, is for four 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, cod. 87 of Trent, and cod. 213 of Oxford. The other, for two to four voices, is entitled Nuper rosarum flores, in honor of S. Maria del Fiore, 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 Estense Library of Modena and cod. 92 of Trent. b) Among the antiphons, noteworthy are the four-voice Salve Regina (cod. 89 of Trent and MS 3154 of Munich [f. 86ᵛ], studied particularly by A. Orel in Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Österreich, VII) and the four-voice Ave Regina coelorum (cod. B. 80 of the archive of S. Pietro in Rome). D. had composed it about ten years before his death and chosen it to be performed at the moment of his agony, as he stated in his will. c) The three-voice sequence Feni Sancte Spiritus (triphum). d) C. Van Den Borren lists in this category 13 three-voice hymns, published in the seventh volume of the Denkmäler, but they do not represent the best of D., since most are in falsobordone and rather sparse in artistic and compositional substance in the truly inventive and expressive sense.
4) Compositions with French texts. Of this group, further subdivided according to literary genres, the rondeaux are omitted here, in order to recall the three famous ballades Je me complains pitement, Le jour s'endort, and finally Se la face ay pale, a «ballade equivoque», a genre based on wordplay (also used by J. Desprez in the Chanson se congiè prens, which served as the melodic and thematic nucleus of D.’s mass with the same title).
5) Of the compositions with Italian texts, the most interesting is undoubtedly the one on the first stanza of Petrarch’s song Vergine bella, which brings D.’s style to an exceptionally high level in inspiration and in the plasticity of the lines across the various vocal and instrumental planes, which in his music overlap and, almost without sharply defined boundaries, shade into one another. Here the mystical tone assumes new splendors of color, and D.’s art makes his superiority over earlier and contemporary artists—such as Binchois, Arnold de Lantins, and even Dunsable—shine forth unmistakably.
The complete works, in addition to the edition begun by G. de Vars, are currently being published under the direction of H. Besseler.