On the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of the construction of the Church
PresentationBiographiesGuillaume Dufay was the most influential composer in Europe in the mid-fifteenth century. Like many other musicians of the time, he used to travel to the continent following princes and popes. In his wanderings he worked for the most important musical chapels, in particular for the papal chapel in Rome. His music had a great diffusion and was transcribed, distributed and played wherever the polyphony had taken root. Among the successive generations, few composers have not absorbed elements of his style. The hymn Ave maris stella was sung during the Vespers of the Virgin . In the modern liturgy the Alma redemptorisit is sung at the end of Compline, from the Saturday before the first Sunday of Advent, until the second vespers of the Purification (2 February). The motand Mirandas parit urbs was probably composed while Dufay was in Florence, at the service of the papal chapel, during the Council which was held in Florence thanks to the influence of the Medici. As for the Supremum est mortalibus , the occasion was the ceremony for the signing of a peace treaty.
The American composer David Lang was born in 1957. In 2008 he won the Pulitzer Prize for the opera The little match girl passion, and in 2013 he was named Composer of the Year by the magazine Musical America. His music is influenced, in a very special blend, influences of modernism, minimalism and rock.