Guillaume Dufay (c.1397-1474):
Chansons

1 Vergene bella, che di sol vestita
2 Navré je sui d’un dart penetratif
3 Quel fronte signorile in paradiso
4 Ma belle dame souverainne
5 Donna, i ardenti ray
6 Mon cuer me fait tous dis penser
7 L’alta bellezza tua, virtute, valore
8 La belle se siet
9 Invidia nimica
10 Mon chier amy
11 La dolce vista del tuo viso pio
12 J’atendray tant qu’il vous playra
13 Par droit je puis bien complaindre et gemir
14 Donna gentile, bella come l’oro
15 Je me complains piteusement
16 Passato è il tempo
17 Entre vous, gentils amoureux
18 Se la face ay pale

After the extraordinary success of their first recording of motets by Guillaume Dufay (Quadrivium), Cantica Symphonia now turn to the composer’s secular output on this second CD, before the planned third instalment which will complete the corpus of motets...

“This CD, which contains an anthology of chansons by Guillaume Dufay dated between 1415 and 1435, including in particular all of Dufay’s secular compositions with Italian texts, was recorded at the church in Colletto, on the hill outside the city of Pinerolo. [...] It was Stanislao Cordero di Pamparato, himself from Piedmont, who first discovered evidence of Dufay’s stay at Pinerolo in documents relating to the Court of Savoy. [...] In these documents, Cordero di Pamparato also came upon a reference to an opera staged in Pinerolo in the presence of the dukes for the carnival of 1439. It was entitled Tempio dell’Onore e delle Vertù and was clearly a moralité, a type of allegorical, edifying theatrical performance fashionable at the time. Although no specific evidence has been found of Dufay’s possible participation in this, Cordero suggests that his role at the court is itself evidence. We have included this suggestion here not as an attempt to reconstruct a (hypothetical) musical involvement in the event, but because the association with the title Tempio dell’Onore e delle Vertù sheds new light on Dufay’s secular work prior to 1440. [...] It is Dufay’s work itself that suggests that this title might well be interpreted from a perspective not too far removed from the emerging humanist philosophy. As a matter of fact, the ‘Temple of Honour and Virtues’ existed as a real building in ancient Rome, on the via Appia...”