Performers: The Pro Arte Singers
Director: Thomas Binkley
Guillame Dufay (1400–1474) was the leading composer of the fifteenth century. He started his musical education as a choirboy in Cambrai, later he became a singer and composer for the leading families and institutions in Italy. He spent many years in the court of Savoy in Chambéry, and at the cathedral of Cambrai. He was a priest, a choir master, and composer, who participated in a major shift in musical composition, leaving the Middle Ages behind to introduce the Renaissance in music. In 1433 Dufay left Italy and the papal service for the court of Savoy. It has been conjectured that Dufay wrote the music presented on this CD as a nuptial mass for the marriage of Louis, son of Amadeus VIII of Savoy, with Anne de Lusignan, sister of the king of Cyprus. The marriage took place in February of 1434 in Chambéry, then the capital of Savoy.
