Missa Supra: Se La Face

Dufay Missa super Se la face ay pale
Mass for four-part mixed chorus

Guillaume Dufay (c.1397-1474) was probably born in Beersel near Brussels and was the musical counterpart of Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden.  

What the symphony was to the nineteenth century, the Mass was to the Netherlandish period, requiring the greatest technical skill in this large scale form to give account, in a cycle which was conceived as a whole, of the ultimate goals of art.  Dufay was the creator of the Netherlandish Mass – a fusion of polyphony from the Continent, sonority from England, joined by tonal harmony from the south.  

The Mass “Se le face ay pale” written around 1450 represents the sovereign height of Dufay’s style after the English influence had been fully assimilated.  The extraordinary vitality and inexhaustible richness of Dufay’s music are surely due to the diversity of such elements which are brought together in a unique, all-embracing synthesis.