Champagne and Burgundy

A celebration of Machaut and Dufay

A programme of rich harmonies, rhythmic energy and glorious inventiveness from two of the greatest masters of the Middle Ages.

Born a century apart, the names of Guillaume de Machaut (c.1300-1377) and Guillaume Dufay (c.1400-1474) dominate music in medieval France. Machaut spent forty years as a canon of Reims in the Champagne region whilst Dufay, although living mainly in Cambrai in northern France, became one of the leaders of the Burgundian school of composition through his connections with Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.

This programme traces a path from the early experiments with dissonance and rhythm of the Ars Nova, through the more exaggerated mannered style of the Ars subtillior at the turn of the century towards the new transparency of texture with which Dufay sought to imitate the work of Dunstaple, the Contenance Angloise.

Particularly interesting is the way in which the driving force behind new techniques of composition, very definitely with Machaut and the French school during the mid-14th century, moves at around the turn of the century to England, demonstrated especially in the pieces of the Old Hall Manuscript, and continued in the works of Leonel Power and John Dunstaple, only to be taken up again by the Burgundian school in France in the mid-15th century.

For the initiated this is a fascinating journey through the period's most significant developments in polyphony, enjoying both well-loved and lesser-known pieces along the way. For those lucky enough to be meeting this music for the first time it is a spell-binding introduction to some of the greatest music ever written.

You can listen to the following pieces from this programme:

• Stella maris illustrans omnia       
• Dueil angoisseux