Gilles de Binchois or Bins (c. 1400 – September 20, 1460), was a Franco-Flemish composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian School, and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century. While often ranked behind his contemporaries Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstable, at least by contemporary scholars, his influence was arguably greater than either, since his works were cited, borrowed and used as source material more often than those by any other composer of the time. Events Henry IV quells baron rebellion and executes The Earls of Kent, Huntingdon and Salisbury for their attempt to have Richard II of England restored as King Jean Froissart writes the Chronicles Medici family becomes powerful in Florence, Italy Births December 25 - John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley, Lord Lieutenant of... September 20 is the 263rd day of the year (264th in leap years). ... Events The first Portuguese navigators reach the coast of modern Sierra Leone. ... In music, the Dutch School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. ... The Burgundian School is a term used to denote a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. ... (14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ... Dufay (left), with Gilles Binchois Guillaume Dufay (Du Fay, Du Fayt) (?August 5, 1397 – November 27, 1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. ... John Dunstable or Dunstaple (c. ...

Life

He was probably from Mons, the son of Jean and Johanna de Binche, who may have been from the nearby town of Binche. His father was a councillor to Duke Guillaume IV of Hainault, and also had a position in a church in Mons. Nothing is known about Gilles until 1419, when he became organist at the church of Ste. Waudru in Mons. In 1423 went to live in Lille. Around this time he may have been a soldier in the service of the Burgundians, or perhaps the English Earl of Suffolk, as indicated by a line in the memorial motet written on his death by Ockeghem. The central square and town hall of Mons Mons (Dutch: Bergen) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut, of which it is the capital. ... Binche is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. ... Events January 19 – Hundred Years War: Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England which brings Normandy under the control of England. ... Events July 31 - Hundred Years War: Battle of Cravant - The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne. ... t* Autoroute A22 : Lille - Antwerp - Netherlands A sixth oher ejt weoitjh w newr0tipew roj40=9 dfiojg b o4it orpitre royieoy i53 -y035 3[49430ne — the proposed A24 — will link Amiens to Lille if built, but there is opposition to its route. ... The title of Earl of Suffolk has been created several times in the Peerage of England, most recently in 1603 for Thomas Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Walden. ... Ockeghem (with glasses) and his singers Johannes Ockeghem (c. ...

Sometime near the end of the 1420s he joined the court chapel of Burgundy, and by the time of his motet Nove cantum melodie (1431) he was evidently a singer there, since the text of the motet itself lists all 19 singers.

He retired to Soignes, evidently with a substantial pension for his long years of excellent service to the Burgundian court. Soignies (in Dutch: Zinnik) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Hainaut. ...

Music and influence

Binchois is often considered to be the finest melodist of the 15th century, writing carefully shaped lines which are easy to sing, and utterly memorable; his tunes continued to appear in copies decades later, and were often used as sources for mass composition by later composers. Most of his music, even his sacred music, is simple and clear in outline, sometimes even ascetic; a greater contrast between Binchois and the extreme complexity of the ars subtilior of the previous century would be hard to imagine. Most of his secular songs are rondeaux, which had become the commonest song form of the century; but Binchois rarely writes simple strophic form, instead shaping his melody almost independent of the rhyme scheme of the verse. (14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ... The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, generally known in the US as the Episcopal Church, and also the Lutheran Church) to music. ... Ars subtilior (more subtle art) is a musical style characterized by rhythmic and notational complexity, centered around Avignon in southern France, at the end of the fourteenth century (Hoppin 1978, p. ... A Rondeau is a form of French poetry with 13 lines written on two rhymes, as well as a corresponding musical form developed to set this characteristic verse structure. ... Strophic form, or chorus form, is a sectional and/or additive way of structuring a piece of music based on the repetition of one formal section or block played repeatedly. ...

Binchois wrote music for the court, secular songs of love and chivalry, music that was expected by the Dukes of Burgundy and that was evidently loved by them. Woman under the Safeguard of Knighthood, allegorical Scene. ... Coat of arms of the 2nd duchy of Burgundy and later of the French province of Burgundy Burgundy (French: Bourgogne) is a historic region of France, inhabited in turn by Pre-Indo-European people, Celts (Gauls), Romans (Gallo-Romans), and various Germanic peoples, most importantly the Burgundians and the Franks. ...

References

• David Fallows, "Gilles Binchois," The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• "Binchois Studies", Edited by Andrew Kirkman and Dennis Slavin. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1995.