We celebrate the birth on August 5, 1397 – 622 years ago today – of the composer Guillaume Du Fay. He was, by every standard, one of the greatest composers to have ever lived and was admired as such in his own lifetime.

A lovely performance of Guillaume Du Fay’s Nuper rosarum flores by the Quire Cleveland, conducted by Ross W. Duffin, and recorded at the Mary Queen of Peace Church in Cleveland, Ohio on Sept. 27, 2014

Guillaume Du Fay (1397-1474)

He was born in the Flemish (today Belgian) town of Bersele (today Beersel), just south of Brussels. He died 77 years later, on November 27, 1474, just across the border in northern France, in the town of Cambrai. 

Du Fay is a principal member of the fraternity of Franco-Flemish (that is, French-Belgian) composers who dominated European music in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. That fraternity boasted some pretty heavy compositional hitters, including Jacob Obrecht, Heinrich Isaac, Orlando de Lassus, Johannes Ockeghem, and the über-great Josquin Des Prez. With the exception of Ockeghem, all these guys spent a significant portion of their careers in Italy, where the climate was swell and the pay was sweet. The Italians called them the “oltremontani”, literally “the dudes from the other side of the alps.”

We don’t know much about Du Fay’s early life. We know that he was the illegitimate child of an unmarried woman named Marie Du Fayt (F-A-Y-T) and an unknown priest. (We shall resist comment on that tidbit.)

We know that early on, Marie Du Fayt moved to Cambrai – in France – where she had family, and that her son Guillaume (or “William”) was educated at the cathedral in Cambrai, where he was chorister as well. 

Du Fay’s musical star burned bright, and in 1428 – now a singer and composer of considerable renown – he joined the papal choir in Rome. Said to have been founded by Pope Gregory the Great his very self (who reigned from 590 to 604 and for whom “Gregorian Chant” is named), the papal choir was the greatest choir in the world at the time, the choral equivalent of the 1927 Yankees, the 1972 Miami Dolphins, the 2017 Golden State Warriors.

While in Rome, Du Fay became a friend of Cardinal Gabriele Condulmer. Du Fay chose his friend wisely, because in 1431 Cardinal Condulmer became Pope Eugene IV.

Gabriele Condulmer (1383-1447); Pope Eugene IV (1431-1447

Eugene IV was the second post-schism pope to rule over a reunited church. (The “Western Schism” – 1378-1417 – was a period that saw two, and even three men simultaneously claim to be the one, “true” pope, each one excommunicating the others.) Unfortunately, the end of the schism did not mean that peace reigned in Rome, and just three years into his reign – in 1434 – a rebellion once again forced the pope to flee Rome (which is what had caused the schism in the first place). The papal court, including the papal choir, went north and set up shop in Florence.

Along with being thin and rich, location and timing are everything. For Du Fay, the timing of the papacy’s move to Florence could not have been more fortuitous. Florence was at the height of her wealth and power, and in 1436 Florence’s great cathedral – under reconstruction since the 1290s – was ready to be rededicated. On March 25, 1436 (the Feast of the Annunciation and the Florentine New Year’s Day), Florence’s distinguished guest, Pope Eugene IV, conducted the consecration ceremony himself. The cathedral, to that time known as Santa Reperata, was renamed Santa Maria del Fiore (“St. Mary of the Flowers”) in honor of the Virgin Mary. To commemorate the occasion, the pope commissioned Guillaume Du Fay to compose a motet.