John Dunstaple or Dunstable (c. 1390 – December 24, 1453) was an English co… Read Full Bio ↴John Dunstaple or Dunstable (c. 1390 – December 24, 1453) was an English composer of polyphonic music of the late medieval era and early Renaissance. He was one of the most famous composers active in the early 15th century, a near-contemporary of Leonel Power, and was widely influential, not only in England but on the continent, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School.
The spelling "Dunstaple" is generally to be preferred, since it occurs in more than twice as many musical attributions as that of "Dunstable". The few English musical sources are equally divided between "b" and "p"; however, the contemporary non-musical sources, including those with a claim to a direct association with the composer, spell his name with a "p."
Dunstaple was probably born in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. His birth date is a conjecture based on his earliest surviving works (from around 1410-1420) which imply a birth date of around 1390. Many of the details of his life are conjectural. Nothing is known of his musical training and background. He was clearly a highly educated man, though there is no record of an association with either Oxford or Cambridge universities. He is widely held to have been in the royal service of John, Duke of Bedford, the fourth son of Henry IV and brother of Henry V. As such he may have stayed in France for some time, since the duke was Regent of France from 1423 to 1429, and then Governor of Normandy from 1429 to his death in 1435. He owned property in Normandy, and also in Cambridgeshire, Essex and London, according to tax records of 1436. After the death in 1437 of another patron, the Dowager Queen Joan, he evidently was in the service of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fifth son of Henry IV.
Unlike many composers of the time, he was probably not a cleric, though there are links with St Albans Abbey (see below); he was probably married, based on the record of women sharing his name in his parish, and he also owned a manor in Hertfordshire.
In addition to his work as a composer, he had a contemporary reputation as an astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician (for example, a volume in the Bodleian Library, largely in the hand of William Worcester, acknowledges that certain information within it had been copied from Dunstaple's writings). Some of his astrological works have survived in manuscript, possibly in his own hand.
Dunstaple's connections with St Albans Abbey are at least twofold:
* the abbot John Whethamstede is associated with the Duke of Gloucester, and Dunstaple's isorhythmic motet Albanus roseo rutilat, possibly with some of the Latin words adapted by Whethamstede from an older poem, was clearly written for St Albans, possibly for a visit to the abbey by the Duke of Bedford in 1426.
* Whethamstede's plan for a magnificent library for the abbey in 1452-3 included a set of twelve stained glass windows devoted to the various branches of learning. Dunstaple is clearly, if indirectly, referred to in some of the verses the abbot composed for each window, not only music but also astronomy, medicine, and astrology.
He died on Christmas Eve 1453, as recorded in his epitaph, which was in the church of St Stephen Walbrook in London (until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666). This was also his burial place. The epitaph - stating that he had "secret knowledge of the stars" - had been recorded in the early 17th century, and was reinstated in the church in 1904.
Dunstaple influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (attributable) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School: le contenance angloise ("the English countenance,") a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Le France added that the style influenced Dufay and Binchois—high praise indeed.
Writing a few decades later in about 1476, the Flemish composer and music theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the "new art" that Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the style, its "wellspring and origin."
The contenance angloise, while not defined by Martin le Franc, was probably a reference to Dunstaple's stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony, along with a liking for the interval of the third. Assuming that he had been on the continent with the Duke of Bedford, Dunstaple would have been introduced to French fauxbourdon; borrowing some of the sonorities, he created elegant harmonies in his own music using thirds and sixths. Taken together, these are seen as defining characteristics of early Renaissance music, and both Le Franc's and Tinctoris's comments suggest that many of these traits may have originated in England, taking root in the Burgundian School around the middle of the century.
Very few manuscript sources of Dunstaple's works survived in England, as is similarly the case for other 15th century composers. Even though England was a centre of musical activity, in some respects exceeding even the output of the continent, almost all of the music was destroyed between 1536 and 1540 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. As a result, most of Dunstaple’s work had to be recovered from continental sources (predominantly northern Italy and the southern Alps).
Because numerous copies of his works have been found in Italian and German manuscripts, his fame must have been widespread. Two problems face musicologists of the 15th century: first, determining which of the many surviving anonymous works were written by which composers and, second, unraveling conflicting attributions. This is made even more difficult for English composers such as Dunstaple: scribes in England frequently copied music without any ascription, rendering it immediately anonymous; and, while continental scribes were more assiduous in this regard, many works published in Dunstaple's name have other, potentially equally valid, attributions in different sources to other composers, including Binchois, John Benet, John Bedyngham, John Forest and, most frequently, Leonel Power.
Of the works attributed to him only about fifty survive, among which are two complete masses, three incomplete but multi-section masses, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets (including the famous one which combines the hymn Veni creator spiritus and the sequence Veni sancte spiritus, and Albanus roseo rutilat mentioned above), as well as twenty-seven separate settings of various liturgical texts, including three Magnificats and seven settings of Marian antiphons, such as Alma redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina misericordie.
Dunstaple was one of the first to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus. A good example of this technique is his Missa Rex seculorum.
He is believed to have written secular music, but no songs in the vernacular can be attributed to him with any degree of certainty: although the French-texted rondeau Puisque m’amour is attributed to Dunstaple in two sources and there is no reason to doubt his authorship, the ballade remained the more favoured form for English secular song at this time and there is limited opportunity for comparison with the rest of his output. The popular melody O rosa bella, once thought to be by Dunstaple, is now attributed to John Bedyngham (or Bedingham). Yet, because so much of the surviving 15th-century repertory of English carols is anonymous, and Dunstaple is known to have written many, most scholars consider it highly likely—for stylistic as well as statistical reasons—that some of the anonymous carols from this time are actually by Dunstaple.
Dunstaple was probably the most influential English composer of all time, yet he remains an enigma: his complete works were not published until the quincentenary of his death in 1953, but even since then works have been added and subtracted from his oeuvre; we know very little of his life and nothing of his undoubted learning; we can only make an educated guess at most of the chronology of the small amount of music that has come down to us; and we understand little of his style - why he wrote as he did, what artistic or technical principles guided his composing, how his music was performed, or why it was so influential.
The spelling "Dunstaple" is generally to be preferred, since it occurs in more than twice as many musical attributions as that of "Dunstable". The few English musical sources are equally divided between "b" and "p"; however, the contemporary non-musical sources, including those with a claim to a direct association with the composer, spell his name with a "p."
Dunstaple was probably born in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. His birth date is a conjecture based on his earliest surviving works (from around 1410-1420) which imply a birth date of around 1390. Many of the details of his life are conjectural. Nothing is known of his musical training and background. He was clearly a highly educated man, though there is no record of an association with either Oxford or Cambridge universities. He is widely held to have been in the royal service of John, Duke of Bedford, the fourth son of Henry IV and brother of Henry V. As such he may have stayed in France for some time, since the duke was Regent of France from 1423 to 1429, and then Governor of Normandy from 1429 to his death in 1435. He owned property in Normandy, and also in Cambridgeshire, Essex and London, according to tax records of 1436. After the death in 1437 of another patron, the Dowager Queen Joan, he evidently was in the service of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fifth son of Henry IV.
Unlike many composers of the time, he was probably not a cleric, though there are links with St Albans Abbey (see below); he was probably married, based on the record of women sharing his name in his parish, and he also owned a manor in Hertfordshire.
In addition to his work as a composer, he had a contemporary reputation as an astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician (for example, a volume in the Bodleian Library, largely in the hand of William Worcester, acknowledges that certain information within it had been copied from Dunstaple's writings). Some of his astrological works have survived in manuscript, possibly in his own hand.
Dunstaple's connections with St Albans Abbey are at least twofold:
* the abbot John Whethamstede is associated with the Duke of Gloucester, and Dunstaple's isorhythmic motet Albanus roseo rutilat, possibly with some of the Latin words adapted by Whethamstede from an older poem, was clearly written for St Albans, possibly for a visit to the abbey by the Duke of Bedford in 1426.
* Whethamstede's plan for a magnificent library for the abbey in 1452-3 included a set of twelve stained glass windows devoted to the various branches of learning. Dunstaple is clearly, if indirectly, referred to in some of the verses the abbot composed for each window, not only music but also astronomy, medicine, and astrology.
He died on Christmas Eve 1453, as recorded in his epitaph, which was in the church of St Stephen Walbrook in London (until it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666). This was also his burial place. The epitaph - stating that he had "secret knowledge of the stars" - had been recorded in the early 17th century, and was reinstated in the church in 1904.
Dunstaple influence on the continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (attributable) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School: le contenance angloise ("the English countenance,") a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Le France added that the style influenced Dufay and Binchois—high praise indeed.
Writing a few decades later in about 1476, the Flemish composer and music theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the "new art" that Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the style, its "wellspring and origin."
The contenance angloise, while not defined by Martin le Franc, was probably a reference to Dunstaple's stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony, along with a liking for the interval of the third. Assuming that he had been on the continent with the Duke of Bedford, Dunstaple would have been introduced to French fauxbourdon; borrowing some of the sonorities, he created elegant harmonies in his own music using thirds and sixths. Taken together, these are seen as defining characteristics of early Renaissance music, and both Le Franc's and Tinctoris's comments suggest that many of these traits may have originated in England, taking root in the Burgundian School around the middle of the century.
Very few manuscript sources of Dunstaple's works survived in England, as is similarly the case for other 15th century composers. Even though England was a centre of musical activity, in some respects exceeding even the output of the continent, almost all of the music was destroyed between 1536 and 1540 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII. As a result, most of Dunstaple’s work had to be recovered from continental sources (predominantly northern Italy and the southern Alps).
Because numerous copies of his works have been found in Italian and German manuscripts, his fame must have been widespread. Two problems face musicologists of the 15th century: first, determining which of the many surviving anonymous works were written by which composers and, second, unraveling conflicting attributions. This is made even more difficult for English composers such as Dunstaple: scribes in England frequently copied music without any ascription, rendering it immediately anonymous; and, while continental scribes were more assiduous in this regard, many works published in Dunstaple's name have other, potentially equally valid, attributions in different sources to other composers, including Binchois, John Benet, John Bedyngham, John Forest and, most frequently, Leonel Power.
Of the works attributed to him only about fifty survive, among which are two complete masses, three incomplete but multi-section masses, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets (including the famous one which combines the hymn Veni creator spiritus and the sequence Veni sancte spiritus, and Albanus roseo rutilat mentioned above), as well as twenty-seven separate settings of various liturgical texts, including three Magnificats and seven settings of Marian antiphons, such as Alma redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina misericordie.
Dunstaple was one of the first to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus. A good example of this technique is his Missa Rex seculorum.
He is believed to have written secular music, but no songs in the vernacular can be attributed to him with any degree of certainty: although the French-texted rondeau Puisque m’amour is attributed to Dunstaple in two sources and there is no reason to doubt his authorship, the ballade remained the more favoured form for English secular song at this time and there is limited opportunity for comparison with the rest of his output. The popular melody O rosa bella, once thought to be by Dunstaple, is now attributed to John Bedyngham (or Bedingham). Yet, because so much of the surviving 15th-century repertory of English carols is anonymous, and Dunstaple is known to have written many, most scholars consider it highly likely—for stylistic as well as statistical reasons—that some of the anonymous carols from this time are actually by Dunstaple.
Dunstaple was probably the most influential English composer of all time, yet he remains an enigma: his complete works were not published until the quincentenary of his death in 1953, but even since then works have been added and subtracted from his oeuvre; we know very little of his life and nothing of his undoubted learning; we can only make an educated guess at most of the chronology of the small amount of music that has come down to us; and we understand little of his style - why he wrote as he did, what artistic or technical principles guided his composing, how his music was performed, or why it was so influential.
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El mois de mai
John Dunstable Lyrics
No lyrics text found for this track.
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
Bastiaan van Beek
As musicologists agree, we know little of medieval music. We have some indications like manuscipts with melodies, some written rules for second voices (also for instruments), physical instruments, but we do not know how it all was used.
We must take modern interpretations of medieval music not too literally. Often, music that is supposed to sound like that era is actually sounding more like Rennaissance music or even early Baroque and mixed up with some medieval stereotypes. In typical medieval films we see this a lot, as well with the so called 'bardcore'.
I like the music though. But we must realize that it isn't really medieval sounding. Why? Because we just do not know how it sounded. It is only guessing and interpretation (sometimes on a high level, but still). From the Rennaissance we know much more about instrumentation, performance, composition, etc.
The closest you can come to actual medieval music is to take a medieval melody (Gregorian chant) and accompany it with either the exact line, or a fifth or quarter interval below, or the tonic (one tone) repeating continuously. Little variation can be made with the accompaniment with strict rules of intervals like a 5th, 4th and an octave. About the instruments we have so little information that we better can leave rhythmic and harmonic choices out. Or even leave the instruments out per definition, because we don't know how they were used. Only use vocals is a good option. I am still talking about getting the closest to actual medieval music, with the best guess we can do.
We better accept that much is unknown and live with that notion. All the later and contemporary interpretations are fine and nice to listen to, but to be defined as interpretations only.
To everyone: in general feel free to experiment with instruments harmony, melody, etc. when writing medieval inspired music; things that you just like.
Jeremy Heartriter2.0
I'm glad somebody finally spoke on this trend. I love bardcore; it's creative, fun to listen to and the best thing is the comment section of bardcore videos.
Jade Harley Coffee Mug
bardcore is like a time traveler performing songs they know like in back to the future
HelloHum 우주음악시대
I wondered and searched about this subject for a long time, with also wondered why music experts don't talk about this so important theme. Thank you so much for your gorgeous explanation!
Estevan Galvez
I write originals rather than bardcore covers, but I really enjoy taking some artistic liberties while still trying to maintain an overall medieval sound. For example, I like to include major seventh and minor seventh chords in my medieval compositions, even though I don't think those chords were ever used at the time. Same with using chords at all 😅 Good video! Very informative.
Estevan Galvez
@Lexi Zuhlke I see! Interesting.
Lexi Zuhlke
Actually, since our modern composing "rules" weren't really a thing back then, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility! They probably just wouldn't know they were doing it.
Asuma Sarutobi
I spent the past two years in a serious deep dive of high medieval era music while trying to reproduce it (began posting a few on my channel), discovering the treasure trove left behind by the troubadours and the minnesängers felt like Christmas, and the monophony does make life easy for playing and singing; and I use an Irish bouzouki to mimic the cittern
What I can say is playing and singing this music of troubadours while in my lillipipe hood has a way of taking me back to that era hehe
Thanks for this vid! It really needs more exposure to get the word out!
dainty beigli
Totally random, but you have the most elegant hand gestures! Super expressive. On topic: the medieval music lesson was interesting. I learned piano and the oldest music I played was from the baroque period. I feel like hearing a modern song without any harmony would sound incomplete.
Hannah Hesler
I really want to hear the most closely accurate medieval music. 🥺😔
Hannah Hesler
@Lexi Zuhlke just watched it! And Loved it. Thank you!!💕