Guillaume DufayArticle Free Pass Dufay was chorister at the
Cambrai cathedral (1409), entered the service of Carlo Malatesta
of Rimini c. 1420, and in 1428 joined the papal singers. In 1426
he became a canon of Cambrai. After seven years with the Duke of
Savoy he lived at Cambrai from about 1440 and supervised the
music of the cathedral. He took a degree in canon law about 1445
and in 1446 became a canon of Mons. Dufay’s surviving works
include 87 motets, 59 French chansons, 7 Italian chansons, 7
complete masses, and 35 mass sections. He often used, and may
have originated, the technique of fauxbourdon, a style of
composition based on the sonorities of the third and sixth and
derived from English descant, an improvisational practice.
During his Italian period Dufay composed a number of ceremonial
motets for public celebrations, among them the election of Pope
Eugenius IV (1431), the Treaty of Viterbo (1433), and the
dedication of Brunelleschi’s dome for Sta. Maria del Fiore,
Florence (1436). For the brilliant