![]() ![]() He is widely held to have been in the royal service of John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, the fourth son of Henry IV and brother of Henry V. He was clearly a highly educated man, though there is no record of an association with either Oxford or Cambridge universities. Nothing is known of his musical training and background. ![]() However, the composer is usually identified as the 'John Dunstaple' that owned a series of astronomy treatises and was described as a 'musician with the Duke of Bedford'. The more plausible candidates include a canon of Hereford Cathedral (1419–1440) named 'John Dunstavylle', though there is no convincing evidence for this. Records from the early 15th century include many references to people named (or with a similar name to) 'John Dunstaple', making it difficult to identify the composer. Less common spellings include 'Dunstapell', 'Dumstable' and 'Donstaple', among others one source simply inscribed 'J. The musicologist Margaret Bent notes that the 'p' spelling is more than twice as common as the 'b' variant in musical sources, and while the few extant English sources use the 'b' and 'p' variants with equal frequency, contemporary non-musical sources almost exclusively follow the 'p' spelling. Modern scholarship has sometimes used the spelling 'Dunstable' to match the town's name, though sources of the composer's time generally refer to him as 'Dunstaple' instead. His birthplace is unknown, though it is assumed that his family adopted their surname after the town of Dunstable, Bedfordshire. Dunstaple's birthdate is a conjecture based on his earliest surviving works from around 1410–1420, which suggests he was born in the late 14th century the musicologist Margaret Bent records c. Some of the spurious information comes from misreadings of Johannes Tinctoris's writings, leading to the erroneous identification of the composer with the 10th-century saint Dunstan. ![]() This uncertainty, and the general vagueness surrounding most details of his life, has led to much speculation and sometimes fictionalized information concerning his life and career. Nothing is known for certain of John Dunstaple's background or early life. ![]() Another important patron was John, Duke of Bedford, with whom Dunstaple may have travelled to France. Probably born in Dunstable in Bedfordshire during the late 14th-century, Dunstaple was associated with Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester and Joan of Navarre, and, through them, St Albans Abbey. Information on Dunstaple's life is largely non-existent or speculative, with the only certain date of his activity being his death on Christmas Eve of 1453. His style would have an immense influence on the subsequent music of continental Europe, inspiring composers such as Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem and Busnois. His surviving music is exclusively vocal, and frequently uses isorhythms, while pioneering the prominent use of harmonies with thirds and sixths. 'English manner'), Dunstaple was the leading English composer of his time, and is often coupled with William Byrd and Henry Purcell as England's most important early music composers. The central proponent of the Contenance angloise style ( lit. 1390 – 24 December 1453) was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. ![]()
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