Quam Pulchra es

Before progressing into more recent repertoire, we step back in time to a very different musical scene. Arguably England’s first great composer was John Dunstaple or Dunstable (ca. 1390-1453). Dunstaple worked at the crossroads of musical styles, and the year of his death coincides with significant changes in European history, including the Fall of Constantinople and the end of the Hundred Years’ War. Going back that far, it is not surprising that much of his music has been lost. The survival of most pieces in collections prepared in Germany and France shows his wide acclaim. He was credited with fundamentally changing harmony, writing in a way that featured fuller triads (three-note chords) and particularly favoring the poetic sound of the chordal third. Both advances would be important in the newer “renaissance” sound. With the three–voice motet, Quam pulchra es, medieval elements still abound. Some of its gestures sound tonal, but more notable are the modal devices that later composers gradually abandoned, including doubled leading-tone cadences, rising/falling intervals immediately after the cadence, and the pure open-fifth harmony at the end (C-G-c).

(c) Jason Stell