Low Country Composers Tour
First stop Amsterdam!
Next stop Hainaut, France where Josquin des Prez was born.
Next stop the Antwerp Cathedral in Belgium! Where the famous composer Jean de Ockeghem performed!
Next Stop Naples where Orlando di lasso performed!
Our Second to last stop in the Cambrai Cathedral where Guillaume Dufay performed
Dufay was chorister at the Cambrai cathedral (1409), entered the service of Carlo Malatesta of Rimini in 1420, and in 1428 joined the papal singers. In 1426 he became a canon of Cambrai. After seven years with the Duke of Savoy he lived at Cambrai from about 1440 and supervised the music of the cathedral. He took a degree in canon law about 1445 and in 1446 became a canon of Mons. Dufay’s surviving works include 87 motets, 59 French chansons, 7 Italian chansons, 7 complete masses, and 35 mass sections.
Now our final stop in the court of Burgundy with the famous composer Gilles Binchois made music.
Gilles Binchois born in 1400, Mons, Hainaut (now in Belgium) died September 20, 1460, Soignies, near Mons), Flemish composer of church music and of secular chansons that were among the finest of their genre, being notable for their elegance of line and grave sweetness of expression. The upper voice in Binchois’s mostly three-part songs is considered to be particularly lyrical.
Gilles’s father, Jean de Binche, was connected to the court of Hainaut. Binchois was in Paris in 1424 serving William de la pole, earl (later duke) of Suffolk, and returned with him to Hainaut in 1425. In 1430 Binchois joined the chapel of Phillip the 3rd of Burgundy, where he remained until his death, eventually becoming second chaplain and cantor. The Burgundian court was in most ways the predominant court of the region, and it was equated by those who enjoyed the duke’s patronage with the court of ale. Binchois was joined there by the likes of fellow composer Guillaume Dufay and Flemish painter Jan van Eyck who is believed to have painted a portrait of Binchois. By 1437 Binchois had become canon at Mons, Soignies, and Cassel.