A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Fay, Guillermus du

FAY, Guillermus du (Guilielmus, Guglielmus, or Wilhelmus Dufay, Dufais, or Duffai).

Until within the last few years, the personal identity of the great leader of the First Flemish School was surrounded by doubts, little less obscure than those which still perplex the biographer of Franco of Cologne. Neither Burney nor Hawkins seem to have troubled themselves, either to learn the details of his life, or to ascertain his true place in the History of Art. Since their day, the authority most frequently consulted has been Baini, who speaks of Dufay as having sung in the Pontifical Choir from 1380 to 1433. Fétis and Ambros were content to accept Baini's dates without verification; and most later writers—ourselves among the number^[1]—have followed their example, to the extent of assuming the learned Abbés words to mean even more than he intended; for, though he tells us that Guil. Dufay's connection with the Pontifical Choir ceased in 1432, he does not say that the Master died in that year—and it is now known that he lived many years later.

One of the first historians of credit who ventured to throw any serious doubt upon Baini's dates was Robert Eitner, whose discoveries led him to suggest—as Kiesewetter had previously done, in the case of Franco—the existence of two Masters of the same name, flourishing nearly a century apart. This extravagant conclusion he based upon the evidence afforded by three tumulary inscriptions, lately discovered at Cambrai. The first of these, from the tomb of Dufay's mother, in the Cathedral at Cambrai, runs thus—

Chi devant ghist demiselle Marie Dufay, mére de me Guillaume Dufay, conone (sic) de cóens,^[2] laquelle trepassa l'an mil IIII^e et XLIIII le jour de S^t George. Pries Dieu pour l'âme.

The second mentions Dufay, in connection with a Priest named Alexandre Bouillart of Beauvais—

Chi gist sire Alexandre Bouillart, pretre, natif de Beauvais, chapelain de léglise, et de m^e Guillaume Dufay, canone de Cambrai, et trepassa l'an mil CCCC.LXXIIII le XX^e jour d'aoust. Dieu en ait les âmes.

The third is the epitaph of Dufay himself, and gives his titles, thus—

Hic inferius jacet venerabilis vir magr. guillermus dufay music. baccalareus in decretis olim hu' ecclesie chorialis deinde canonic' et sce. waldetrudis montem qui obiit anno dni. millesimo quadrin … no die XXVII^a mensis novembris.

The hiatus in the date is supplied by an old MS. in the Library at Cambrai, which establishes the 28th of November, 1474, as the exact date of Dufay's death. It is upon the difference between this and the date given by Baini that the argument in favour of the existence of two Dufays is based. The details of the controversy are too complicated for insertion here; we therefore propose to content ourselves with a brief summary of its results, as influenced by the recent criticisms and discoveries of Jules Houdoy,^[3] Vander Straeten,^[4] Eitner,^[5] Otto Kade,^[6] and Fr. Xav. Haberl.^[7]

Until the labours of these writers were given to the world, the general belief was, that Guilielmus Dufay was a native of Chimay, in Hennegau; that he first sang in the Pontifical Choir, at Avignon; that he migrated thence to Rome in 1377, when Pope Gregory XI restored the Papal Court to that city; and that he died in Rome, at a very advanced age, in 1432.

That he sang at Avignon is in the highest degree improbable; and neither Baini nor any other writer has attempted to verify the supposition. But the rest of the account seems plausible enough, if we can only bring ourselves to believe that the Master attained the age of 104. Haberl rejects this theory, on the ground that Dufay quite certainly learned to sing, as a Choir-boy, in the Cathedral at Cambrai; and there formed an intimate and lasting friendship with another young Chorister—Egidius Binchois. But it is well-known that Flemish children, with good voices, were taken to Rome at a very early age: and there is nothing unreasonable in the supposition that Dufay, having been born at Chimay in 1370, and taught to sing in the Maîtrise at Cambrai, formed there his youthful friendship with Binchois, and was removed at ten years old to Rome, where, as Baini tells us,^[8] on the authority of the Archives of the Cappella Sistina, he was received into the Pontifical Choir in 1380. This last-named date we have had no opportunity of verifying; and it must be confessed that it assumes both Dufay and his mother to have lived to a very advanced age indeed. Haberl unhesitatingly rejects it; and assumes on this very ground, that Dufay cannot possibly have been born before the year 1400. Baini's assertion that Dufay quitted the Choir in 1432, is open to less objection. The Archives conclusively prove that he sang in it, as a Laic, in 1428; and again in 1431, 1433, 1435, and even 1436, in which year his name occupies the first place on the list of the twelve Singers. In 1437 his name is omitted, eleven Singers only being mentioned, without him; and after this he disappears from the records. A document has, however, been discovered, in which mention is made of his release from his engagements, in 1437; and M. Houdoy's researches at Cambrai prove, beyond all doubt, that between that year and 1450 he spent seven years in Savoy; that he took his degree of Magister in artibus, and Baccalareus in decretis, in Paris, at the Sorbonne, before 1442; that he entered the service of Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, as music-tutor to his son Charles, Comte de Charolais; that he obtained a Canonry in the Cathedral of Cambrai, in 1450; and that he died there in 1474.

In his will, which is still in existence at Cambrai, Dufay bequeaths to one of his friends six books which had been given to him by the Comte de Charolais; to another, a portrait of Louis XI, who, when Dauphin, spent some time at the Court of Burgundy; to a third, a portrait of Réné of Anjou, who was Philippe's prisoner for a long time; and to a certain Pierre de Wez 30 livres, in return for seven years' use of his house in Savoy. He also desires that, when he has received the Last Sacraments, and is in articulo mortis, eight Choristers of the Cathedral shall sing, very softly, by his bedside, the hymn 'Magno salutis gaudio'; after which, the altar-boys, with their master, and two choristers, shall sing his motet, 'Ave Regina coelorum.' This pious duty was, however, performed, not at his bedside, but in the chapel, after his death, 'corpore presente.'

The will is printed entire by Haberl, who also gives a woodcut of the tombstone, with the inscription given above, and a representation in bold relief of the master, kneeling, with folded hands, in the dexter corner, in front of S. Waltrudis and her two daughters, the remainder of the stone being occupied with a representation of the Resurrection of Our Lord, while the four corners are ornamented with a medallion, or rebus, in which the name, Dufay, is encircled by a Gothic G. The stone is now in the collection formed by M. Victor de Lattre, of Cambrai.

The archives of the Cathedral of Cambrai contain a record of 60 scuta, given to Dufay as a 'gratification,' in 1451. And the text of a letter, written to Guil. Dufay by Antonio Squarcialupi, a Florentine Organist, and dated 1 Maggio, 1467, is given, by Otto Kade, in the Monatshefte for 1885.

Guil. Dufay is mentioned, by Adam de Fulda, as the first Composer who wrote in regular form (magnum initium formalitatis). This statement, however, can only be accepted as correct, in so far as it concerns the Continental Schools, since the Reading MS. proves regular form to have been known and used in England as early as the year 1226. Nevertheless, though he was not, as has so long been supposed, the eldest, but the youngest of the three great Contrapuntists of his age—Dunstable, Founder of the Second English School having died in London in 1458, and Binchois at Lille in 1460—his title to rank as the Founder of the First Flemish School is rather strengthened, than invalidated, by the recent discussion to which we have alluded: for, his contributions towards the advancement of Art were of inestimable value. If not actually the first, he was one of the first Composers in whose works we find examples of the Second, Fourth, and Ninth, suspended in Ligature: and he was also one of the first of those who availed themselves of the increased facilities of contrapuntal evolution afforded by the then newly-invented system of white notation—the 'blacke voyd' of the English theorists. So highly was his learning esteemed by his contemporaries, that, when on a visit to Besançon, in 1458, he was asked to decide a controversy concerning the Mode of the Antiphon 'O quanta exultatio angelicis turmis,' his decision that it was not, as commonly supposed, in Mode IV, but in Mode II, and that the mistake had arisen through a clerical error in the transcription of the Final, was accepted by the assembled savants as an authoritative settlement of the question.

Besides the collection of Dufay 's MS. Compositions among the Archives of the Cappella Sistina, and the Vatican Library, Haberl has identified 62 in the Library of the Liceo filarmonico, at Bologna; 25 in the university of the same city; and more than 30 in other collections. Many will also be found in the rare Part-Books printed, at the beginning of the i6th century, by Petrucci,and in the Dodecachordon of Glareanus.^[9] The 'Ave Regina coelorum' is given, by Haberl, in the original notation of the old Part-Books, and also in the form of a modernized Score; together with a Score of a 'Pange lingua, a 3'; and some important examples are given among the posthumous Noten-Beilagen at the end of Ambros's 'Geschichte der Musik.' A short quotation from his 'Missa Tomine armé' will be found in vol. iii. p. 260 a.

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See vol. ii. p.226 b; and iii. p.260 a. Also, 'A General History of Music,' p. 53. (London, 1886.)
2. Another reprint has céens. The word stands, of course, for the modern French word, céane, signifying here, or of this place. But a learned German critic has mistaken it for the name of some unknown town, in the neighbourhood of Cambrai; and gravely tells us no such place as Céens is mentioned in any atlas or guide-book with which he is acquainted.
3. Histoire artistique de la Cathedrale de Cambrai. (Paris, 1880.)
4. La Musique aux Pays-Bas.
5. Monatshefte für Musik-Geschichte. (Leipzig, 1834. Nro. 2.)
6. Ibid. (Leipzig, 1885. Nro. 2.)
7. Bausteine fur Musik-geschichte. Nro. 1. Wilhelm du Fay. (Leipzig. 1885.)
8. Memorie storico-critiche della vita di Giov. Pierluigi du Palestrina. (Roma 1828.)
9. A German translation of this work is now in course of publication, under the editorship of Robert Eitner.