FAUXBOURDON AND FABURDEN
Example 11-20 was actually composed by Du Fay himself. It is the concluding item in his Missa Sancti Jacobi, a “plenary” setting of the Mass for Saint James (that is, a setting that includes both the Proper and the Ordinary). Circumstantial evidence suggests that the Mass may have been written for the Church of San Giacomo Maggiore (Saint James the Greater) in Bologna, where Du Fay was sojourning in 1427 and 1428. If that date is correct, then Du Fay’s Communion is the earliest surviving specimen of this technique for deriving three parts from two to achieve an instant-English effect. It would be rash, however, to call Du Fay the inventor of the technique or the year 1427 or 1428 the exact year of its invention on the basis of such scanty data. Still, Du Fay was one of the recognized specialists in the technique, with twenty-four surviving specimens to his name (four times as many as Binchois, the runner-up).
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