John Dunstable: A Brief Biography

John Dunstable was an English composer that was born in 1385 and died in 1453. 68 years seems like a short life, but Dunstable accomplished a lot of things during his lifetime. Due to the age in which Dunstable was alive, not many records reveal much information about his personal life, but there is some very interesting information that can still be found about Dunstable. As well as being a composer, Dunstable was also a mathematician and astronomer. It is also known that he was in the service of the Duke of Bedford for reasons that are unknown, but I theorize it could be as his personal musician or possibly as a mathematician using his services for the throne (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Dunstable’s name alone has almost been lost in …show more content…
It is known that Dunstable travelled to write pieces in “Trent, Aosta, Bologna, Florence, Berlin, El Escorial, Paris, and Seville” (Encyclopedia of World Biography). This is one way to know he travelled throughout Europe, but unfortunately, many English compositions throughout Europe were destroyed due to many wars in the area. These wars make it difficult to string together a timeline to track the path of Dunstable and there may be many locations Dunstable had visited that we are unaware of. All of Dunstable’s pieces could have been lost had there not been such a high esteem held towards that centuries English music (Britannica). I theorize that, based on the information I have read, the music we know as Dunstable’s could also be copies of his works, due to many of his works being lost in the destructions of war and many aspiring to carry on his music from …show more content…
I have looked specifically at his piece “Quam pulchra es” and listened to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjbl6HbHCqM. The piece is a motet. When translated, which the video I found did for us, it clearly praises Mary, the mother of Jesus, and ask for her love. It is a beautiful song, yet chaotic as there are many voices going at once. The song is written in Latin, which is standard to how many Catholic churches ran things back in the 15th century. From my personal knowledge of growing up in the Catholic school system, the Catholic church used to speak entirely in Latin and only until recently, started to move towards using the native language of wherever the church may be. By looking through a source, it is seen that Dunstable produced at least ten other motets in his time (Lewis). Throughout the many genres Dunstable wrote, it seems they were all connected by one thing, vocals. Dunstable commonly wrote for multiple voices, but for a group smaller than a choir (Cook 2018). It is thought that Dunstable may have been the creator of double structure in music, but this is only a theory as explained by a source: “This structure, possibly invented by Dunstable, became popular with later composers” (Britannica). The thing that I see as beautiful in the way Dunstable wrote his music was his harmonies. The way he melts a man’s voice and woman’s voice in his music creates