The life and music of Guillaume Dufay, 1397-1474, are among the most difficult to circumscribe for major Renaissance composers. One point of clarity is that Dufay was considered by far the leading composer of his day, a musician of almost unparalleled eminence, and one of the most famous men of his generation. Dufay's large and varied musical output, its extent only now coming into focus in some cases, acted to define the new musical style of the early-to-mid-fifteenth century and with it the course of Western music into the High Renaissance. Dufay's influence over musical composition was complete and permanent, affecting every genre and sphere. Dufay was born near Cambrai around 1400, with recent documentary evidence presented by Alejandro Planchart suggesting the precise year 1397. As is typical for the era, the events of his early life are unclear, including an apparent apprenticeship with Richard Loqueville and appointments both in Italy and around Cambrai. By the mid-1420, Dufay was already one of the most famous composers in Europe, having composed such landmark works as Adieu ces bons vins de Lannoys, in 3 parts, and Apostolo glorioso, in 5 parts, two of many compositions for which a specific historical occasion can be identified. The outlines of his career begin to take on greater clarity by 1428 when he was appointed to the Papal Choir, where he remained until 1433. The extent of Dufay's compositional activity during this period, including both hymns and plainchant along with more dramatic isorhythmic motets such as Ecclesie militantis (also in 5 parts), is only now being fully appraised. In the 1430s, Dufay is associated with some of the most important musical events in Italy, in Ferrara, Savoy, Florence, etc. By 1440, he returned to Cambrai to take up one of his absentee posts, only to go back to spend most of the 1450s in Savoy, and then return permanently to Cambrai. He continued composing there, including the cantilena motet Ave regina celorum (in 4 parts) as specified to be performed at his deathbed. Together with his activities as a composer, Dufay was a man of broad ability. He was a doctor of canon law, and was summoned to consult on numerous ecclesiastical events. The survival of individual pieces within Dufay's impressive musical output has been somewhat haphazard. However, the many harmonized chants he wrote mostly early in his career form the bulk of it. These consist of frequently straight-forward elaborations on plainchant, setting it in a harmonic context. Although relatively simple music, Dufay's gift for beautiful melody and clear harmonic direction is frequently evident. This repertory, much of it associated with the Vatican, also gives a historical indication of the increased role of liturgical polyphony during the period. In addition, it has been discovered that Dufay wrote plainchant himself, further broadening the scope of his output. During this period, Dufay also wrote a wide range of secular songs as well as various mass sections and complex isorhythmic motets for special occasions. The songs are among his most consistent and characteristic creations, with nearly a hundred of them surviving from all stages of his career. Together with those of Binchois, Dufay's songs are among the most charming compositions of the early Renaissance. Dufay's early songs already show this style with full mastery, illustrating his most facile and exuberant command of melody and counterpoint. Both the mass movements and motets can be divided into two fairly distinct styles. Some are highly technical isorhythmic works evocative of the music of the previous generation, and some are more closely allied to his simpler chant harmonization. Dufay was the last great exponent of the isorhythmic style, and his large-scale festival motets such as Nuper rosarum flores, in 4 parts, are among the most spectacular creations of the period. This is the area in which Dufay's music most directly continues that of the previous generation, and it is also an area in which his stylistic development is clear. The mass movements in particular show a progression from isolated works of varying complexity, to partially linked cycles, to cycles linked in relatively simple ways, to the four "cantus firmus" masses of Dufay's late career. These cantus firmus masses in four parts are his most famous works today, and were apparently instrumental in solidifying the position of this genre as central to the development of fifteenth century music. Dufay's style in these masses can be viewed as a combination of the complex and angular isorhythmic technique with the more fluid and straight-forward hymn writing. This was an important synthesis which he accomplished in some of his late motets, as well as in the later mass cycles such as the Missa Ecce ancilla Domini and Missa Ave regina celorum. They represent the definitive style followed by the next generations. Detailing a specific individual style for Dufay is difficult, especially as his music naturally groups itself into different genres for completely different purposes. Within these genres, his works are frequently similar, although there is usually variety under the surface, especially in the songs. Dufay's music is sometimes described as following previous patterns, with a masterful sense of melody and counterpoint. Such a simple description neglects the synthesis he achieved, as well as the differing technical motivation for earlier counterpoint. However, Dufay's melodic gifts and influence are unquestioned. Although his polyphony may seem less "full" to our ears than that of subsequent generations, its elegance and beauty remain easy to hear.
Josquin Desprez is widely regarded as one of the finest and most influential composers in the history of Western music. The stylistic traits of his music, both in contrapuntal technique and in text-setting, gave the defining direction to the High Renaissance and with it the course of music history as a whole. Not only was Josquin admired by Martin Luther as the greatest of composers, but his music was distributed throughout Europe and especially in Germany for decades after his death. The clear textures and text declamation which Josquin employed set the stage not only for the next developments of technical harmony, but for the clarity and conciseness demanded by the Counter-Reformation of Palestrina et al. as well. Josquin's output displays a rare combination of innovation and accomplished technical mastery, and has retained for him a position as the most prominent composer of the early sixteenth century, perhaps the high point of Western music as a whole. The circumstances of Josquin's early life are mostly unclear. No documentary evidence exists prior to engagements in his early adulthood, and later contemporary suggestions that he was born in Hainaut are disputed effectively by documentary evidence that he was a legal alien there during the last years of his life at Condé. What can be stated with some certainty is that legally and culturally, Josquin was French, from somewhere in the region of Picardy. His career was first visible in Milan, but this fact is now disputed, and indeed under some proposed scenarios the year of his birth may be closer to 1455 than the traditional 1440. He certainly received relatively early appointments at the French Court and at the Papal Chapel in Rome. In any event, Josquin did not remain there long, and fleeing the plague, went to Condé for his retirement by 1504. His appointment in Ferrara also coincides nicely with Petrucci's first publication of a volume of Josquin's masses in 1502. The establishment of movable-type printing for polyphony by Petrucci in Venice is one of the most significant events in Western music history, and the choice of Josquin for the first dedicated volume is perhaps the single most instrumental event defining Josquin's subsequent reputation. Although he spent a substantial portion of his career in Italy, Josquin evidently received his training in the Northern Franco-Flemish style before then, perhaps at the feet of Ockeghem . Josquin's international career certainly marks him as a special talent of the period, and consequently a composer of wide influence and cosmopolitan taste. However, there is a clear precedent in the career of Dufay, which follows a similar outline. Josquin's Northern foundation is clearly seen in his mastery of contrapuntal textures in four, five and six voices, and especially in his canonic technique. His Italian influence is frequently sought in the increasingly lucid textures he employed, together with his new emphasis on homophony. The lightness and short phrases of Italianate settings were to be balanced against the more melismatic and contrapuntal Northern style, and consequently Josquin perfected the technique of "pervasive imitation" to achieve a contrapuntally-based structure around short motives and interlocking phrases. Pervasive imitation describes a situation in which shared material between voices determines the contrapuntal texture of a piece, and in Josquin's case, this usually meant interlocking canonic duets. Josquin's stylistic progression can be perceived first in a reduction of melismatic phrases and ornately spun lines to a more succinct and syllabic style built around canonic technique and second in a more sophisticated deployment of this technique such that its structural implications are not particularly evident to the listener. In some cases, this increased subtlety can cause some confusion as to whether a work dates to before or after Josquin's perfection of the pervasive imitation technique, which is frequently exemplified by the eloquent motet Ave Maria, gratia plena in four parts. As a leader in the most fundamental stylistic shift of the High Renaissance, Josquin continued to place music more and more at the service of text. This was accomplished not only by cleaner textures and declamations, but also by early word-painting techniques which would become a staple of the later madrigal schools. Priority was also given to text in larger and more sophisticated ways, letting details of the structure of the poetry dictate elements of the musical progression, a practice which at his best Josquin could perform in particularly unselfconscious and compelling ways. Josquin's subsequent reputation rests both on his response to text and his development of pervasive imitation as a technique for straightforward settings able to support larger structures, leading to the sixteenth century codifications of harmony by Zarlino. Josquin's musical output consists of some eighteen mass cycles, plus independent sections and doubtful attributions, more than a hundred motets and about eighty secular works primarily in French. His is a relatively large surviving output for the period and accordingly varied. Although modern taste for the mass cycle as a sort of proto-symphony has brought an emphasis on Josquin's music in this genre, his motets are clearly his most individual, expressive and masterful contributions. The variety of expression they contain, together with their formal ingenuity make them sufficient by themselves to establish Josquin's posthumous reputation. Among these, such works as Miserere mei, Deus, Stabat Mater dolorosa, and Praeter rerum serium have become especially popular and important today. Josquin's masses are certainly not to be neglected, especially considering the restraint and serenity he was able to convey in this form. Of these, the Missa de beata virgine was by far the most popular in contemporary sources, even if it apparently did not originate as a cycle and is the only Josquin mass cycle with entire movements not in four parts. Also based quite austerely on direct plain song quotation, the Missa Pange lingua is the one securely attributed Josquin mass not to be published by Petrucci, possibly because of its late date. The circumstances surrounding Josquin's secular music are frequently even less clear, although his position as a transitional figure in this genre, between the Burgundian court chansons of Busnoys and others to the fully sixteenth century madrigal style, is easy to observe. His secular music is accordingly broad in its stylistic range, and it has even been suggested that much of it was intended for instrumental performance. Josquin's lofty reputation was reflected both in the widespread survival of his substantial and varied output as well as in many misattributions, intentional and otherwise. Various transcriptions exist, as well as authentic works with parts added by other composers. Although these facts mean that Josquin's catalog remains in a state of flux, understanding of his music and historical position has never been better. Even many casual listeners today regard him as the greatest composer in Western music, and of course his position with respect to the origin of music printing guarantees that his influence will remain substantial.
The greatest composer of liturgical music of all time, born Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in 1514 or 1515, according to Baini, Riemann, and others, according to Haberl, in 1526; died at Rome, February 2, 1594. His early history is practically unknown. Giuseppe Ottavia Pittoni (1657-1743), in "notizie dei maestri di cappella si di Rome che ultramontani", 1600-1700", a manuscript in the Vatican, relates that young Pierluigi sang in the streets of Rome while offering for sale the products of his parents farm and that he was heard on such an occasion by the choirmaster of Santa Maria Maggiore, who, impressed by the boy's beautiful voice and pronounced musical talent, educated him musically. As to the identity of the choirmaster, tradition gives no clue. Some hold that Palestrina was taught by Jacques Arcadelt, choirmaster and composer in Rome from 1539 to 1549. The opinion, so long held that Claude Goudimel was his principal teacher has now been definitively abandoned. As far as is known, he began his active musical life as organist and choirmaster in his native city in 1544; his reputation increasing, in 1551 he was called to Rome, entrusted with the direction and musical formation of the choirboys at St. Peter's, and within the same year was advanced to the post of choirmaster. In 1554, he dedicated to Julius III, from1549 to 55, his first compositions, a volume of masses for four voices, and was rewarded with the appointment as a member of the papal chapel in contravention of the rules governing that body. The pope had set aside the rule requiring those who held membership in the papal choir to be in Holy Orders, and also used his authority to exempt him from the usually severe entrance examination. These circumstances and the further fact that his voice was much inferior to those of the other singers aroused the opposition, and antagonism of his fellow-members. The papal singers did not appreciate the object of the pope, which was to secure for the gifted young man the necessary leisure to compose. In the course of the same year, Palestrina published a volume of madrigals. The texts of some of these the composer himself in later years considered too free. In the dedication of his setting of the Canticle of Canticles to Gregory XIII, he expresses not only regret but repentance, for having caused scandal by this publication. he worry and hardship caused by the dismissal brought on a severe illness; restored, the composer took charge, October 1, 1555, of the choir at St. John Lateran, where he remained until February, 1561. During this period he wrote, beside Lamentations and Magnificats, the famous "Improperia". Their performance by the papal choir on Good Friday was ordered by Paul IV, and they have remained in its repertoire for Holy Week ever since. This production greatly increased Palestrina's fame. In 1561 he asked the chapter of St. John Lateran for an increase in salary, in view of his growing needs and the expense of publishing his works. Refused, he accepted a similar post at Santa Maria Maggiore, which he held until 1571. It is not know at what period of his career Palestrina came under the influence of St. Philip Neri, but there is every reason to believe it was in early youth. As the saint's penitent and spiritual disciple, he gained that insight into the spirit of the liturgy, which enabled his to set it forth in polyphonic music as it had never before been done. It was his spiritual formation even more than his artistic maturity, which fitted him for the providential part he played in the reform of church music.
As one can understand composers in this Early Musical Era were extremely dedicated to the work at hand. Because of these magnificent artists of music, we today have evolved into something else. Because of them we will continue to evolve. And with their music they will live on forever.
