Research Paper On John Dunstable

John Dunstable was an English Composer that had a strong influence on English classical music. Experts have pieced together the facts to fill in the missing information about his life, it’s hard to even determine his exact birth date. Much of his biographical information is skeptical due to the lack of evidence. His earliest works was around 1420s so his birth must have been born around 1390s. He was believed to have died on December 24, 1453 in London, England.

Music wasn’t really the biggest career choice during Dunstable’s life. Most musicians during this time made their living as clergy in the church because music was considered to be a hobby or an interest. Not only was Dunstable a musician, he was also a very educated man. Dunstable studied

He was known for his unique polyphonic style which he influenced not only in England but around the whole continent. Although his music was a big influence to the people, it wasn’t really popular for a long time. Historians and people that work closely with music history, faced many problems when trying to recover his music. Many of his pieces and manuscripts had been destroyed during the Reformation period. The reformation was “A 16th-century movement in Western Europe that aimed at reforming some doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of the Protestant churches” (isorhythmic). Due to his pieces being destroyed, they had to be recovered from different outside countries that he visited earlier around Italy and the Southern Alps. This explains why Dunstable’s music took a long time for people to actually hear his

But of all the work he created only about fifty of his things survived. Which included two complete masses, three sets of connected mass sections, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets- (including the famous one which combines the hymn Veni creator spiritus and the sequence Veni sancte spiritus), and twenty-seven separate settings of various liturgical texts, including three Magnificent and seven settings of Marian antiphons, such as Alma redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae. (Encyclopedia)

Dunstable was known for introducing many things into the English music. He was one of the first to compose in a mass with a single melody as cantus firmus. A great example of this style was seen in his famous piece “Messa Rex Seculorum”. This particular piece presents a single cantus firmus melody in the tenor voice in each mass movement, according to the isorhythmic motet. An isorhythmic motet “consists of a single rhythmic phrase pattern repeated, usually in the tenor, throughout the composition." (isorhythmic)

In order to get to know Dunstable’s traits and characters, you take a look at his motet,