Guillaume Dufay left posterity with an extraordinarily large and varied output, but did not supply any information as to the proper pace and mode of expression in such corpus; it is rather like leaving behind a unique model car with no instructions on how to drive it. A skilled driver with some knowledge of mechanics can figure out how to get it running, and in a sense, that is what editors and interpreters do when they rehabilitate manuscripts of old and attempt to put over music that is more than five centuries old and ...
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Guillaume Dufay left posterity with an extraordinarily large and varied output, but did not supply any information as to the proper pace and mode of expression in such corpus; it is rather like leaving behind a unique model car with no instructions on how to drive it. A skilled driver with some knowledge of mechanics can figure out how to get it running, and in a sense, that is what editors and interpreters do when they rehabilitate manuscripts of old and attempt to put over music that is more than five centuries old and counting. In the case of Glossa's motet collection, Guillaume Dufay: Supremum est mortalibus bonum, Italian period performance group Cantica Symphonia under director Giuseppe Maletto attempt to get to the bottom of Dufay works found variously in Bologna Q15, Modena Ms. 471, and in the Trent Codices. These sources by their very nature will tend to deliver early Dufay rather than later, and the selection is a mixture of both sacred and secular motets, accompanied very sparsely by a group...
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