John Dunstable
Dunstable was the most prominent English composer of the early Renaissance . . . slightly older than Dufay in France, and apparently quite influential on the Franco-Flemish school of the later 15th century. He was musician in the Duke of Bedford’s entourage during the Duke’s Regency of France after 1422 (when Henry V died), and performed his “Veni sancte Spiritus” at the coronation of Henry VI in Paris in 1431. Other connections are St. Albans Abbey and Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. He died in 1453 in London and is buried at St. Stephen Walbrook.
Again we regret an unaccountably small representation of Dunstable’s considerable output in this collection, which included Mass settings, motets, Marian antiphons, Magnificats. No identifiable secular work survives.
Quam pulchra es
Despite some doubt about the attribution this short motet continues to be one of the most frequently performed Dunstable works. From the ‘Song of Songs’ it is found in the Bologna Q15 ms. . . . It is extremely consonant and homorhythmic contrasting with most other motets of the day.
John Dunstable "Quam pulchra es"
Quam pulchra es et quam decora
carissima in deliciis.
Statura tua assimilata est palmæ,
et ubera tua botris.
Caput tuum ut carmelus.
Collum tuum sicut turris eburnea.
Veni dilecte mi; egrediamur in agrum,
et videamus si flores fructus parturiunt,
si floruerunt mala punica.
Ibi dabo tibi ubera mea. Alleluia.
How beautiful thou art and how graceful
in thy dearest enticements.
Thy figure is like unto the palm tree,
and thy breasts like pomegranates.
Thy head is like a mountaintop,
and thy neck a tower of pearls.
Come my beloved; let us enter the garden
and see if the flowers have borne fruit,
if pomegranate trees are in blossom.
There I will give you my breasts. Alleluia.