John Dunstaple

Great East Window of medieval York Minster

Stained glass containing 'Apocalypse' by John Thornton 1405-1408

Source: PlanetWare

Panel detail from 'Apocalypse' by John Thornton

Source: York Glaziers Trust

Born about 1390 in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England, John Dunstaple (or Dunstable) well represents late medieval and early Renaissance across the Channel from the Continent, his years of major musical activity circa 1410 to 1453, placing him in the Ars Nova period. He probably had nothing to do with York Minster ("minster" indicating Anglo-Saxon), though may have been a teenager when master glazier, John Thornton, completed his 'Apocalypse' at its east face in 1408. Albeit a major composer, it's something ironic that the more he was esteemed by his peers the less about his life is known to much detail. England was to be unique in musical tastes compared to the rest of Europe a little more glued together without the high seas between them, such as a particularly strong emphasis on song versus instrumental works. But that's far ahead of Dunstaple across the Channel from France where the main forces of medieval music had long since arrived in terms of secular troubadours and sacred composers of the Notre Dame School in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively.

Though being set apart from the continent by the Channel made for English differences in more than only music, it was hardly isolating at only thirty miles away. Dunstaple may have served a period in France for John of Lancaster, Governor of Normandy from 1429 to 1435. He also found patronage in the dowager, Queen Joan, then the Duke of Gloucester in 1437.

Though it's unlikely that Dunstaple ever served the Church in any clerical capacity he was a composer of largely sacred music, notably motets in the polyphonic style for which he is credited, Contenance Angloise. Characteristic to his works was triadic harmony and the major third interval. He is also the earliest known composer of sacred music to add instrument to voice. As such was Roman Catholic prior to the English Reformation, his compositions were subject to the Dissolution of the Monasteries by King Henry VIII from 1536 to 1541, a process by which properties of the Catholic Church were dismantled and their assets acquired by Henry who was also official head of the new Protestant Church of England. As a result, most of Dunstaple's works are lost, though about fifty survive of sources in Germany and Italy, his prestige huge on the continent as well.

Works of other composers of sacred Catholic music in England circa Dunstaple's period have endured in the illuminated Old Hall Manuscript of 1415-1421 containing compositions dating from about 1370 to 1420. Its author, Leonel Power, may have been a teacher of Dunstaple's. That collection of scores which contains five works by Dunstaple is presently housed and made accessible online by the British Library in London. Those five works are 'Ascendit Christus super caelos', 'Ave regina caelorum', 'Veni sancte spiritus', 'Veni creator spiritus mentes' and 'Mentes tuorum visita'. Dunstaple is thought to have composed secular music as well, though nothing can be accredited to him with certainty. Titles below are stacked alphabetically for absence of more specific dates which broadly fall somewhere circa 1410 to 1453:

'Beata Mater'   Motet for 3 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Pro Cantione Antiqua led by Bruno Turner

'Nesciens Mater'   Motet for 4 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Lumina Vocal Ensemble   Adelaide Fringe Festival   Feb 2014

'Specialis Virgo'   Motet for 3 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Orlando Consort   1995

'Quam Pulcra Es'   Motet for 3 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Hilliard Ensemble led by Paul Hillier

'Salve Regina Misericordiae'   Motet for 3 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Hilliard Ensemble led by Paul Hillier

'Salve Regina Sanctitatis'   Motet for 4 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by the Pro Cantione Antiqua w the Collegium Aureum

'Sancta Maria'   Motet for 3 voices by John Dunstaple

Performance by De Speellieden

Dunstaple had been a well-educated man, especially in astronomy, astrology and mathematics, though it isn't known with what universities he may have been associated. He was also richly propertied in multiple locations in Normandy and England, dying in London on 24 Dec 1453.

HOASM (Ars Nova period in England)

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