A famous passage by Martin le Franc in his Champion des dames (c. 1441) speaks of the contenance angloise, the new sweetness of English music as the apparently more barbaric Continental musicians recently encountered it. Martin credits Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois with imitating the "English countenance" and bringing a rebirth of musical beauty to French-speaking lands; his judgment has provided the beginning of most historical concepts of the "Renaissance" in music. Although other prominent courtly musicians of the English fifteenth century certainly contributed to the style and assisted in transmitting this style to a France which Henry V had recently conquered, the composer whom Martin le Franc specifically names as leader among the English is John Dunstable. Dunstable was a mathematician, astrologer, and musician in the service of the Duke of Bedford, Regent of occupied France from 1422 till 1435. This period of Dunstable's service across the Channel might explain the survival in numerous Continental music manuscripts of his motet Quam pulchra es. The text of Quam pulchra es serves as a processional before the mass in the Sarum Rite (English plainchant according to the traditions of Salisbury Cathedral). The English chant for Sundays in summer and autumn and for Saturdays throughout the year, provided often elaborate processionals for the entry of clergy and other celebrants. Many of these chants in the fifteenth century were devotedly Marian in cast; several, including Quam pulchra es, use the sensual texts of the Song of Solomon. In the original Hebrew of the Old Testament, the Song may have preserved Israelite wedding poetry or an allegory of God's relationship to His people. In Medieval Catholic exegesis, the most common sublimation of its erotic content applied the Song allegorically to devotion of the Virgin Mary; the explicit nature of the imagery remained. A literal translation of Quam pulchra es (from Song of Songs 7:6-7, 11-12) for instance, ends with the lover's promise to go into the fields and enjoy the ripeness of her breasts. Musically, Dunstable reacts to the lush imagery of his text with an exquisite sweetness of sound. The three (male) voices relate most often to one another in pure triadic fashion; his "pan-consonant" harmony is so well controlled that no structurally important beat anywhere in the piece receives a dissonance. Imperfect consonances—thirds and sixths—predominate over the "perfect," but more austere fifths and octaves. The rhythms of the text drive those of the musical motives, lending a clarity of declamation to the piece. The composer also reveals some sensitivity to nuances of textual meaning, as in the graceful melismas on the luscious adjectives deliciis and eburnea, the contrasting steadfastness of the imitative motive on caput, and the dramatic invitation of fermata-marked chords when the text asks the beloved to come (veni). Many of these aspects, in fact, are not at all characteristic of the general style of Dunstable's motets. But Quam pulchra es was one of his most popular pieces in the fifteenth century and remains in the foundation of his fame.





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