Dunstable: Sacred and Secular Music - Ambrosian Singers

The life of John Dunstable (d. 1453), like that of so many other medieval musicians, is still very much of a closed book. He probably took his name from his native town in Bedfordshire, and we know he served the Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V, as a member of his private chapel. Since the Duke was Regent of France, Dunstable must have known even in his youth a life of continual travel. He probably received his training as a chorister in the Chapel Royal. In 1418, the Duke removed six men from the Chapel to accompany him on his European journeys, and it is likely that one of these men was John Dunstable. He became a conano of Hereford Cathedral in 1419, but this would not have interfered with his travels in the service of the Duke. 

For nearly twenty years John Dunstable lived in France and probably visited neighboring countries as well. By far the greater number of manuscripts containing his work is found in continental libraries; hardly any remain in England. The political upheaval caused by England’s withdrawal from France (Dunstable’s writing down of an astronomical treatise in 1438 coincides roughly with the date of the retur to England of the Duke’s chapel) and the cankerous intrigu that was eventually to burst forth as the Wars of the Rose may well have caused his retirement from the musical world and from the rigors of medieval travelling. He appears to have written no music during the last fifteen years of hi life. Between the epitaph referring to him as “as astrologiana a mathematician, a musician, and what not” and Thoma Morley there is hardly reference to him by an Englis writer. However, the glowing testimonies of Tinctoris, Martin le Franc and Eloy d’Amerval more than make up the the lack of interest in England.