LISTENING
Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1397-1474): Se la face ay pale [Ballade; 1430s]
        Score: Anthology #18a      CD3, Track 7             Length: 1:01
        Translation of Text: Atlas Anthology p. 489

Guillaume Du Fay: Missa Se la face ay pale: Gloria and Sanctus [Cantus Firmus Mass; early 1450s]
        Score: Anthology #18b      CD 3, Track 8-9        Length: 9:05, 6:24
        Translation of Text: Atlas Anthology p. 487
        What serves as the cantus firmus for this mass?
        How did Du Fay use the cantus firmus in each movement (esp. the Gloria and the Sanctus)?  How does this mass
                reflect the tradition of Mass Pairs?
        Be able to describe the form of the Gloria and the Sanctus.
        Other than the use of the cantus firmus, what other means does Du Fay employ to unify the mass?
        Describe the polyphonic texture of this mass.  Compare the four-part sections to the two types of duos.

REVIEW QUESTIONS (Concentrate on pp. 112-128 in Atlas; Just skim pp. 128-135)
1.  Describe the emergence of the cantus firmus mass.  Start your answer in the mid-14th century.  How did early fifteenth-century composers "tie" various mass movements together--"suspect" and "motivic"?  In Mass Pairs, which movements are usually paired?  Why were these movements conducive to pairing?  How are these Mass Pairs "retained" in fully unified settings of the Mass Ordinary?
2.  Where and when were the earliest extant examples of the cyclic cantus-firmus mass composed?
3.  Describe the standard polyphonic texture of a fifteenth-century cantus firmus Mass (e.g., how many voices, where's the tenor, what about the new bass, etc.).
4.  How does the use of the cantus firmus in Du Fay's Missa L'Homme Armé differ from the use of the cantus firmus in Missa Se la face ay pale?
5.  According to Atlas and other musicologists, why did the Cantus Firmus Mass emerge?

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Last Updated: October 23, 2000 by Eric Hung (hungeric@mnstate.edu).