THE UNICORN ENSEMBLE

"He is the most important jewel of our time", said Piero
de´ Medici, the father of Lorenzo de´ Medici, speaking in
the year 1467 of Guillaume Dufay (1400?-1474). The high
esteem with which this leading composer of the waning
Middle Ages was held is reflected in the fact that more
of his works and knowledge about his life have been
handed down than is the case with his contemporaries.
His travels took him, among other places, to Pesaro in
the service of the Malatesta family and to Rome for the
purpose of study. There he met Gilles Binchois. His com-
positional output, of which more than 200 works have
been preserved, was influenced and enriched by a wide
variety of contacts with personalities of his time, such as
Donatello, Brunelleschi, Pope Eugene IV and Jean
d´Ockeghem as well as the Medici family and the house
of Savoy. His polyphony appears to be a "conversation"
between the tenor, cantus and contratenor. The tenor
controls the harmonic movement andwith the cantus
creates a contrapuntally perfect foundation, characte-
rised by imitation. The contratenor fills out the texture
with its own diction, lending colour and rhythmic life to
the conversation.