Another significant discovery of recent years resulted from the research of Barbara Haggh. She found that in 1457 a canon of the Cambrai cathedral endowed a new liturgical Office to be celebrated every year on the fourth Sunday of August. Titled Recollectio Festorum Beatæ Mariæ Virginis, this feast would commemorate six mysteries of Our Lady’s life that were already celebrated during the liturgical year. Gilles Carlier composed the texts of a rhymed Office which was sent to Dufay at the court of Savoy. He quickly composed chant settings of all the texts, and the feast was celebrated for the first time in August 1458. The feast was sung every year for centuries, though perhaps not as late as the destruction of the cathedral in 1796. One of the most compelling circumstances that proved Dufay’s authorship was the only complete copy of the music that was found at the cathedral of Aosta in Savoy. Until this discovery, no chant compositions of Dufay were known.

The Masses

The idea of composing a cyclic Mass that comprises the five unchanging Ordinary sections of the Mass did not flourish after Guillaume de Machaut’s strikingly original Messe de Nostre Dame of c.1360. Dufay’s early works in this genre were Mass sections, like those that Johannes Ciconia and his contemporaries had written in the period of 1380-1420. Some works were individual sections, while pairs of Gloria-Credo and Sanctus-Agnus Dei were also known. Dufay’s surviving works include a Kyrie-Gloria-Credo, a Kyrie-Sanctus-Agnus Dei, two Gloria-Credo pairs and three Sanctus-Agnus Dei pairs, along with eleven Kyries, nine Glorias and a single Credo.