Guillaume Dufay was an influential 15th century composer born between 1397-1400 in what is now Belgium. He spent his life serving the Catholic Church, holding positions across Italy and France as a choirmaster and priest, composing sacred music for church choirs. Considered the most important composer of his era, Dufay helped establish the Burgundian style of polyphonic music and influenced generations of composers with his masses, motets and chansons. His setting of the "Kyrie" from the Missa L'homme armé is an example of his famous cyclic mass that unified sections of the mass through a cantus firmus melody.

1. Music in History:
Medieval/Renaissance Composers
Guillaume Dufay
1397/1400- November 27, 1474

2. Guillaume Dufay
• The exact date of Guillaume Dufay’s birth is
not known.
• He was born sometime between 1397 and
1400 to a single mother in the region around
Brussels, Belgium.
• When Guillaume was a boy, he and his mother
moved to Cambrai, a town in northern France.

3. Guillaume Dufay
• In Cambrai, Guillaume showed an interest in
music, which was encouraged by the priests at
the Cathedral in Cambrai.
• He also sang as a choirboy in a cathedral choir.
• While he was still a teenager, Guillaume was
named a chaplain in the church.
• This was the first of many positions in the
church, in fact, Guillaume spent his entire life
in service to the Catholic Church.

4. Guillaume Dufay
• Guillaume traveled to Italy in 1420.
• Here he met other composers and began
composing vocal works for church choirs.
• He became a deacon in Bologna, Italy, and
eventually, in 1428, a priest.
• By 1430 he was a member of the Papal choir in
Rome.
• In 1435 he moved to Florence, Italy, where he
again sang in the cathedral choir, all the while
continuing to compose music for his choirs.

5. Guillaume Dufay
• During the 1430s, Dufay lived in various Italian
cities, always serving the church and
composing choral music.
• Political and religious unrest caused him to
return to Cambrai to study law, and he
eventually received a law degree from the
University of Turin in Italy.
• He would become an expert in the laws and
legal principles of the Catholic Church.

6. Guillaume Dufay
• In 1445 Dufay returned to France.
• He spent time in the Savoy region where he
worked as a choirmaster for the Duke of
Savoy, and in Burgundy where he held the
same position for the Duke of Burgundy.
• A choirmaster is someone who conducts a
choir, today called a choir director.
• Dufay also taught music and gave lessons in
composition.

7. Guillaume Dufay
• Although he now lived in France, Dufay continued to travel
extensively throughout Europe. In his travels he made
important musical and political contacts. He was often
commissioned to write music for choirs of various dukes
and kings.
• Commissioned meant that Dufay was hired to write a piece
of music in exchange for a fee
• The singers of northern France were highly favored by
Italian choirmasters, and the choir at the Cathedral of
Cambrai was said to be the best in all of Europe.
• Dufay was the most important choirmaster of this region in
France and was in demand throughout Europe as a
choirmaster.

8. Guillaume Dufay
• Toward the end of his life, Dufay was
appointed as the Canon at the Cambrai
Cathedral.
• By this time, he had become one of the most
respected and influential composers in Europe
and was a wealthy man.
• He died in Cambrai in 1474.

9. Dufay’s Music
• Dufay’s music was the most important of what is
known as the Netherlands School of music
composition (also known as the Burgundian
School).
• It was very rhythmic and advanced for its time.
• Dufay was probably the most influential
composer of his era, and his music influenced a
great many younger composers.
• Although he wrote mostly sacred masses and
motets, Dufay also composed secular music such
as chansons.

10. Dufay Factoids
• Dufay wrote at least 87 motets, 60 chansons, and
seven masses.
• A ceremonial motet composed by Dufay was
performed at the election of Pope Eugenius IV in 1431.
• Most of Dufay’s chansons were written for three
voices. Most likely a singer sang the top voice and
instruments played the two lower voices.
• During his lifetime, Dufay was generally regarded as
the greatest composer of his era.
• Although Dufay lived over 550 years ago, much of the
music he wrote was preserved and has survived to the
present day.

11. “Kyrie” from Missa L’himme armѐ
• “L’homme armѐ” was a secular French song from
the Renaissance Era.
• Many different composers have based a variety of
selections on this popular melody.
• More than 40 settings of this melody were used
in Latin masses that survived from this period.
• Other than Dufay, composers Des Prez, Morales,
Ockegham, and Palestrina are among the many
composers who set this melody in their masses.

12. “Kyrie” from Missa L’himme armѐ
• Written in ¾ time, this minor tune’s original lyric
partially translates as “The armed man should be
feared.”
• Some historians feel that this “armed man”
represents St. Michael, the Archangel.
• Others think it refers to a popular tavern (Maison
L’Homme Armѐ) which was located in Cambrai,
France, near where Dufay lived.
• Versions of the actual melody exist as early as the
1450s.

13. “Kyrie” from Missa L’himme armѐ
• During the Renaissance period, this idea of a
“cyclic mass” became quite the rage.
• Each section of the mass was based on this one
melody known as the “cantus firmus,” so the
mass was musically unified.
• The Kyrie is most often set in ABA for because of
the text:
– A. Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy).
– B. Christie elesion (Christ, have mercy).
– C. Kyrie elesion (Lord, have mercy).

14. “Kyrie” from Missa L’himme armѐ
• Written around 1460, Guillaume Dufay’s Kyrie
setting uses the first line of “L’homme armѐ” for
the opening Kyrie.
• He uses the second line for the Christe section.
• Then, the original Kyrie melody returns.
• The four a cappella (no accompaniment) voices
sing weaving polyphonic lines with lone melismas
(many notes sung on the same word or syllable),
making it difficult to hear the main theme.
• Dufay wrote this mass around 1460 and the
entire composition lasts around 50 minutes.