Dunstable: Quam Pulchra Es / Veni Sancte Spiritus / Mass Movements

Featuring

Antony Pitts
Tonus Peregrinus
John Dunstable

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Performer Biography

TONUS PEREGRINUS, the ensemble on this recording, was founded in 1990 by composer and producer Antony Pitts while he was studying at New College, Oxford.

Compositional Technique

Dunstable is credited with converting the 'sweet-sounding thirds' used by earlier English musicians into fully-resonant triads (three-note chords), a significant development in harmony.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Dunstable's rich harmony, characterized by cross-relations and major triads on different scale degrees, became a distinctive English musical trait that persisted for centuries.

Historical Context

In 1475, the musicologist Tinctoris credited English composers, particularly John Dunstable, with transforming music into a 'new art' that rendered earlier works obsolete.

Recording & Production

This recording includes a four-part Gloria in canon, which was recently deciphered by Margaret Bent, with a speculative two-part canon added underneath by the performers.

Critical Reception

Continental composers Dufay and Binchois were influenced by Dunstable's 'new method of making fresh harmony,' which was described as joyful and remarkable in a 1442 poem by Martin le Franc.

Composer Biography

John Dunstable, despite being considered the first truly great English composer, is largely unknown today, partly because his works survive mostly in manuscripts scattered across Continental Europe.