What is Gilles Binchois?
[[File:DufayBinchois.jpg|thumb|250px|Binchois (right), with [[Guillaume Dufay]]]] '''Gilles Binchois''' (probably born in [[Mons]] about [[1400]]; died [[Soignies]], [[20 September]], [[1460]]), was a [[France|Franco-]][[Flanders|Flemish]] [[composer]]. His name is spelt in various ways: “Binchoys”, “Binch” or “Binche” or “Gilles de Bins”. He is one of the earliest composers of the group known as the [[Burgundian School]]. His style of composition had a very important [[influence]] on music at the [[Burgundy|Burgundian]] court. Together with [[Guillaume Dufay]] and [[John Dunstaple]] he belongs to the greatest of [[15th century]] composers. == Life == He was probably born in [[Mons]] in what is now [[Belgium]]. His father, a [[councillor]] to Duke Guillaume IV of [[Hainault]], had a job in a church in Mons. Nothing is known about Gilles until [[1419]], when he became organist at the church of Ste. Waudru in Mons. In [[1423]] went to live in [[Lille]]. He may have worked as a soldier. Sometime near the end of the [[1420s]] he joined the court chapel of Burgundy. He sang with the [[choir]] there. He spent many years working at the Burgundian court. He was not allowed much time to be away, so he did not travel much. We know that he went to Mons in 1449 on which occasion he met [[Guillaume Dufay]]. When he retired he went to live in [[Soignes]]. He had a good pension. == Music and influence == Binchois wrote beautiful [[melody|melodies]] which were much simpler than a lot of the music of the [[Middle Ages]]. They are easy to sing and remember. Many later composers used melodies by Binchois as a basis for their own [[mass (music)|masses]]. Most of his [[secular]] songs are [[rondeau]]x, which became the most common song form during the century. Binchois did not often write in [[strophic]] form. He preferred to write music which did not follow the rhyming rhythm of the verse. {{DEFAULTSORT:Binchois, Gilles}} [[Category:Renaissance composers]] [[Category:Franco-Flemish composers]] [[Category:1400 births]] [[Categ