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A new canonic Gloria and the changing profile of Dunstaple

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Margaret Bent
Margaret Bent
Affiliation:
All Souls College, Oxford
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Extract

John Dunstaple's reputation as the most famous English composer of the Middle Ages has stood almost unchallenged since his death. Two epitaphs attributed to one of his patrons, John Wheathamstead, Abbot of St Albans between 1420–40 and 1452–64, give him equal credit as a mathematician and astronomer (or rather, astrologer). Dunstaple was evidently proficient in the quadrivial arts of music, astronomy and mathematics (arithmetic and geometry), but only his musical activities have been thoroughly explored. At least two books that were in his library may provide hints about the level of his attainment in mathematics and astronomy. One is a fascicle within another volume that carries the often quoted ‘Iste libellus pertinebat Johanni Dunstaple cum duci Bedfordie musico’. The other and more extensive of the two manuscripts, Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 70, contains treatises on astronomy and astrology by standard authors in various hands. Some of these have what must be a scribal signature (often in the form ‘deo gratias quod Dunstaple’), apparently signalling his own hand for those treatises. If this is indeed the case, we have dozens of folios of closely written Dunstaple autograph and several signatures. His copy of the older astrological treatise by Bartholomew of Parma is copiously illustrated by excellent line-drawings of zodiacal signs and constellations. If these drawings are also in his hand (and they are harmonious with the surrounding script), we must add fine draughtsmanship to his known accomplishments.

Type
Articles
Information
Plainsong & Medieval Music , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 1996 , pp. 45 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Printed in my Dunstaple (Oxford, 1981). See also Maclean, Charles, ‘The Dunstable Inscription in London’, Sammelbande der International Musikgesellschaft, II (1910), 232–49.Google Scholar

References to published musical works by Dunstaple are to John Dunstable: Complete Works, ed. Bukofzer, Manfred F., Musica Britannica 8 (London, 1953);Google Scholar 2nd, rev. edn by Margaret Bent, Ian Bent and Brian Trowell (London, 1970). Pieces will be referred to here as, e.g., JD8 for number 8 in the edition. Numbers of pieces from JD68 and up appear only in the revised edition.

2 Cambridge, St John's College, MS 162, f. 74. See James, M. R., Catalogue of the Manuscripts of St John's College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913).Google Scholar M. R. James in cataloguing the manuscript suggested that ‘cu’ or ‘en’ (which sometimes has been read irregularly as ‘canonicus’) might be ‘quondam’.

3 Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 70. See James, M. R., Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1904).Google Scholar

4 One of these is reproduced on the booklet accompanying the Orlando Consort's recording of Dunstaple's music. See n.32.

5 Personal communication, summer 1995.

6 Music at the Court of Henry VIII, ed. Stevens, John, Musica Britannica 18 (1962), no. 32.Google Scholar JD66, a tenor attributed to ‘Dunstable’ in two theory manuscripts, presents an isorhythmic tenor of rising and descending tetrachords and annotated with the proportional indications 12 : 9 : 8 : 6.

7 The Old Hall Manuscript, ed. Hughes, Andrew and Bent, Margaret, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 46, 3 vols. (N.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1969–1973).Google Scholar

8 ‘Proportion in the Music of Dunstable’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 105 (1978–1979), 100–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Boethius, De Institutione Musica, 1.34. Quoted from the translation by Calvin Bower of Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, Fundamentals of Music (New Haven and London, 1989), 51.Google Scholar

10 See n.l.

11 Canterbury, Cathedral Library, Add. MS 128/6. Described by Sandon, Nicholas (as CANT 3) in ‘Fragments of Medieval Polyphony at Canterbury Cathedral’, Musica Disciplina, 30 (1976), 37–54.Google Scholar

12 Elmham, Thomas [attrib.], Liber metricus de Henrico V0, chapter 17, in Memorials of Henry V, ed. Cole, C. A. (London, Rolls Series, 1858).Google Scholar The manuscript sources of the chronicle are London, British Library, Cotton Vesp. D.XIII, f. 171v, and Cotton Julius E.IV, f. 106r. The edition follows the Julius manuscript, but brackets the titles misleadingly. The Vespasian manuscript's slight differences are the basis for the present reading with respect to JD32. Motets listed are for the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, King Edward (the Confessor), John the Baptist, George and Mary. See also my ‘Sources of the Old Hall Music’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 94 (1967–1968), 19–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Fallows, David, ‘Dunstable, Bedyngham and O rosa bella’, The Journal of Musicology, 12 (1994), 287–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Festschrift issue for James Haar: Aspects of Musical Language and Culture in the Renaissance). Only Puisque m'amour (JD55) bears an unconrradicted ascription; Durer ne puis (JD64) has a rival ascription to Bedyngham.

14 This (informally delivered) supposition was based on the absence of music and on Dunstaple's presumed close relationship with Wheathamstead. In Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 674 (a note book of William of Worcester), f. 74, the date 1438 appears to be attached to a list of latitudes of (mostly English) places that claims to be copied from ‘old writing’ in the hand of Dunstaple. Dates in the Emmanuel MS fall mostly earlier than Dunstaple's life, and therefore attach to the text copied rather than to any additions to it by Dunstaple, but some may refer to his own observations (notably one dated the last day of 1420 at ‘Bruges in Flanders’).

15 Published in the appendix to the revised John Dunstable: Complete Works, as JD73. See also Margaret, and Bent, Ian, ‘Dufay, Dunstable, Plummer - A New Source’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 22 (1969), 394–424.Google Scholar

16 Formerly Kent County Record Office, PRC 49, f. 20; it is housed in the Heritage Services Group of Kent County Council, County Hall, Maidstone, where it has been renumbered PRC 50/5. It belonged to a different manuscript from the leaf containing Preco preheminencie (for which see n.ll above).

17 From c. 1438 until his death on 5 June 1445. See Bowers, Roger, ‘Some Observations on the Life and Career of Leonel Power’, Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, 102 (1975–1976), 103–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practkall Musicke (London, 1597), 178.Google Scholar See also the modern edition by R. A. Harman (London and New York, 1952), 291, and JD67.

19 The Eton Choirbook, ed. F. LI. Harrison, Musica Britannica 10–12 (1958–61). The original contents of the manuscript, reconstructed from the contemporary index, are listed in vol. HI, pp. 180–2. Dunstaple's setting of Gaude flore occupied openings 08 and pi, flanked by works by Fayrfax and Browne. The composer's name is one of very few occurrences spelt with a ‘b’.

20 For Eton, see above. For Add. 54324, see Margaret and Ian Bent, ‘Dufay, Dunstable, Plummer - a New Source’, where the complete first half of the motet is transcribed. The tenor is labelled ad nutum, which we there neglected to point out. This fragmentary first half was broadcast on 14 May 1995 by the Orlando Consort, on BBC Radio 3 (Spirit of the Age), in a discussion by Christopher Page and Margaret Bent of incomplete pieces.

21 In Leipzig, Universitatsbibliothek, MS 1084. See Ward, Tom, ‘Music in the Library of Johannes Klein’, in Music in the German Renaissance, ed. Kmetz, John (Cambridge, 1994).Google Scholar The Gloria survives in part in Cambridge, Mass., Houghton Library, MS Incun. 8948, announced by Kovarik, Edward, ‘A Newly Discovered Dunstable Fragment’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 21 (1968), 21–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Mrs Goncharova mentioned the fragment at the meeting of Cantus Planus at Eger in 1993, and was directed to me by David Hiley; I have her kind permission to report on the discovery. This polyphonic leaf is in the Eesti Teatri- ja Muusikamuuseum, Tallinn, Estonia, among the papers of Mrs Erika Franz, a pianist from Tallinn and professor at the Conservatory, who studied in St Petersburg, Berlin and Paris early in the present century. The fragment is catalogued as METM (= Museum of Estonian Theatre and Music) Franz 8.2/la.

23 Thanks for this reading, as for erudite guidance and advice on many matters, go to Leofranc Holford-Strevens, whose helpful comments on a draft of this article, together with those of Bonnie J. Blackburn, I here acknowledge. Christopher Page's welcome suggestions have also gone beyond the call of editorial duty; he recalls that ‘quod’ is common in Middle English vernacular usage. ‘Quod’, unusual in a Latin context, seems to have authorial import here and scribal import in the Emmanuel manuscript. Dunstaple's association with these two rather rare uses of ‘quod’ may increase the likelihood that the lone attribution at the end of the text of the carol l pray you all (Medieval Carols, ed. John Stevens, Musica Britannica 4 (1958), no. 15), in the Selden manuscript, to ‘quod J.D.’, is indeed an attribution to Dunstaple.

24 I am very grateful to Alejandro Planchart for his characteristic generosity in computer-setting the music.

25 This may support the reading ‘A versi’ of a distinction applied in the index of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canonici misc. 213 to four Mass movements which alternate between two- and three-part sections. The ‘versi’ are simply sections, of whatever length the structure of the piece dictates, and need not be confined to alternating settings as in the interesting discussion by Schoop, Hans, Entstehung und Verwendung der Handschrift Oxford Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213, Publikationen der Schweizerischen musikforschenden Gesellschaft, Serie II vol. 24 (Berne, 1971), 49–50.Google Scholar

26 Other English canons but no close parallels are published in Canons in the Trent Codices, ed. Loyan, Richard, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 38 (N.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1967).Google Scholar The thirteen-part unaccompanied unison canon by Robert Wylkynson offers no close analogy. It is published in The Eton Choirbook, vol. Ill, ed. F. LI. Harrison, 135.

27 Bent, Margaret, with Howlett, David, ‘Subtiliter alternare: the Yoxford Motet O amicus/Precursoris’, Studies in Medieval Music: Festschrift for Ernest Sanders, ed. Lefferts, Peter M. and Seirup, Brian (New York, 1990) = Current Musicology 45–7: 43–84.Google Scholar See also Bent, M., ‘Pycard's Double Canon: Evidence of Revision?’ Sundry Sorts of Music Books. Essays on The British Library Collections. Presented to O. W. Neighbour on his 70th birthday, ed. Banks, Chris, Arthur Searle and Malcolm Turner (London: The British Library, 1993), 10–26.Google Scholar

28 The Gloria Old Hall no. 35, fols. 29v-30r, bears the rubric: Hie sunt duo cantus in uno triplo unus post ahum fugando sex temporibus. In no. 75 (fols. 62v-63r) the three canonic voices are referred to as cantus (tres cantus in uno reperies).

29 Facsimile, in ‘The Progeny of Old Hall: More Leaves from a Royal English Choirbook’, Gordon Athol Anderson (1929–1981) in Memoriam, Musicological Studies 49, 2 vols. (Henryville, Ottawa, and Binningen: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 1984), I, 1–54.Google Scholar This largely supersedes ‘A Lost English Choirbook of the 15th Century’, International Musicological Society: Report of the Eleventh Congress, Copenhagen 1972, ed. Henrik Glahn, Soren Sorensen and Peter Ryom, 2 vols. (Copenhagen: Edition Wilhelm Hansen, 1974), I, 257–62. An earlier setting of Gaude flore in this manuscript (see the strip on plates 51–2 of the 1984 publication) must now be considered a candidate for Dunstaple's authorship in view of its newly discovered neighbouring Glorias by him, but this was almost certainly a four-part setting and is not the same as that in Add. 54324.

30 One leaf from later in the Gloria section is now in Canberra. The appearance is similar, but the scribe different.

31 Wathey, Andrew, Music in the Royal and Noble Households in Late Medieval England. Studies of Sources and Patronage (New York and London: Garland, 1989);Google Scholar (with Stell, J.) ‘New Light on the Biography of John Dunstable?’ Music and Letters, 62 (1981), 60–3;CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘Dunstable in France’, Music and Letters, 67 (1986), 1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I am grateful to Dr Wathey for further unpublished information.