Fauxbourdon, the 15th century French compositional technique that influenced the musical style of the time period, is a controversial area of study for many historians.  The disparities in three common reference sources display the differences in its treatment, content-wise and length-wise.  In this paper, I compare the nature of the treatments of fauxbourdon from the Harvard Dictionary, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and Fuller’s The European Musical Heritage 800-1970.

Firstly, the sources’ different purposes are enough cause for their varying lengths in treating the subject.  Fuller’s contribution on fauxbourdon is two paragraphs long; New Grove, over twenty pages; and Harvard Dictionary, over two pages.  Fuller’s aim by including content on fauxbourdon was to further the holistic view of 15th century sacred polyphony, of which Dufay’s Christe, redemptor omnium was one of other works of focus.  Her description of fauxbourdon is short because she merely using it for emphasizing a greater goal.  The New Grove Dictionary and Harvard Dictionary, on the other hand, both serve specific purposes for gathering sumptuous information on topics.  Between the two of them, the New Grove Dictionary conjured much more content, and was by far more detailed and specific.

Although their lengths differed greatly, the three sources were consistent in the major aspects of fauxbourdon, even though their methods in explaining and subsequent details did not match.  They all agreed that Dufay was one of the earliest and most influential composers to employ the 15th century technique.  Although New Grove Dictionary insinuates the possibility of an earlier originator of fauxbourdon (Trowell), Harvard Dictionary explicitly states that he was the “inventor” (Apel, 309).  All sources expressed consistency in fauxbourdon’s general polyphonic traits for the most part, in sacred settings.  They all incorporate the following terms to describe its polyphony: the cantus, tenor and middle voice.  Even though they all used musical excerpts from Dufay; the length, work and method in which it was portrayed varied from each source.  Fuller elaborated extensively on its use in all of Dufay’s Christe redemptor omnium, including additionally, the original hymn itself (Fuller, 143-44); Harvard Dictionary, a short eleven-bar excerpt of Dufay’s Communion of Missa Sancti Jacob (Apel, 309); and New Grove Dictionary, eight bars of Dufay’s communion in Vos qui secuti estis (Trowell).  The sources also concurred on fauxbourdon’s characteristic of improvising over a plainchant, but not on the effect of its extemporization.  Fuller describes its improvisation as a way to “magnify a monophonic line” (Fuller, 145); Harvard Dictionary states that its improvisation “results in a monotony” (Apel, 309); and New Grove Dictionary, that while its use its earliest use was “contradictory and inharmonious” its more modern use was “sonorous”(Trowell).

Even with the same general ideas stated above emphasized in each source, the sources differed considerably in the details on which each dwelled.  Fuller’s bit on fauxbourdon was biased towards Dufay, and therefore, heavily describes his Christe redemptor omnium in relation to fauxbourdon.  She goes into the technical compositional intricacies of Dufay, from how the patterns of the verse numbers to his modifications of the phrases and cadences to the orientation in general of his type of fauxbourdon setting.  New Grove focuses mostly on background.  Unlike the other two sources, which give general overviews, it gathers many specifics on history.  For example, while Fuller and Apel explicitly state Dufay as one of the earliest composers of fauxbourdon, Trowell only mentions the early theorists’ bits on this topic.  It is not until later towards the end of the article that he mentions Dufay.  He writes as if assuming the reader already has a satisfactory background in the area of study and is searching for rare information.  Apel, on the other hand, amongst the three sources, hits the center the best.  He answers the question, ‘What is fauxbourdon?’ most successfully of all, explicitly keeping his details focused in the definition, example, and other usages of fauxbourdon.

The way in which each source organizes its perspective on fauxbourdon also marks the uniqueness of each.  Fuller first includes the entire musical excerpts of Dufay’s Christe, redemptor omnium and then its incorporation with fauxbourdon; after which she describes Dufay in great detail.  She does the latter by briefly highlighting his achievements for the 15th century in the first paragraph; his contribution to fauxbourdon in the second; and the relationship of the musical excerpt to fauxbourdon to the third paragraph.  Trowell’s much more complicated organization of his article on fauxbourdon consists of six sections.  These include: fauxbourdon in musical sources; its plainchant extemporizing; its distribution and origin; the early fauxbourdons; its traits; and its developments.  Within each section is an abundance of technical information that tends to ramble from one area quickly to another.  With the exception of the first, which is only a couple of lines long, the sections are at least two pages and difficult to glean pertinent information from because of its lack of separation into paragraphs.  Trowell offers countless sources and detailed information for each of his six sections, but they do not come directly to the point.  This makes it harder for students to efficiently make good use of the wealth of information he offers. Apel’s concise and well-balanced article, on the other hand, is much easier to use as a resource than that of Trowell’s.  His is divided into three usages, each one consisting of a paragraph.  The first usage is of the fifteenth century; the second, the modern usage; and the third, the present-day English usage.  The bulk of information lay in the first paragraph, which happens to be the one on which this paper is focused.  Apel’s was the most helpful in obtaining information about fauxbourdon because it dwelled specifically on the topic, not so much on the historical background or examples of fauxbourdon, as in the other two sources.

All sources, especially New Grove Dictionary, incorporate other musical composers, additional sources, musical works, or terms in their treatment of fauxbourdon.  Besides Dufay, other composers referred to include Ockeghem (Fuller, 145); Binchois (Apel, 309); Grossin, Busnoys, Isaac (Trowell).  Additional sources abound in Fuller, which recommends the reader to related Harvard Dictionary articles, including Bourdon, Discant, Discantus supra librum, Faberdon, Fabordon, Faburden, and Falsobordone.  Trowell, however, includes even more sources that are not limited to New Grove Dictionary: Besseler, Trumble, Tinctoris’s Lauda Sion, Juan de Lucena’s Libro de vida beata, Paumann’s Fundamenta organisandi, Burtius, Bukofzer, and many more!  Musical works include Christe redemptor omnium (Fuller), Missa Sancti Jacobi (Apel), Magnificat, Missa paschalis, Juvenis qui puellam, Terrible dame, Supremum est Mortalibus bonum, etc. (Trowell).  Musical terms are also in abundance: cantus, tenor, settings, organum (Fuller); Gebrauchsmusik, cantus firmus, superius, (Apel), res facta, super librum, canon, motet, psalm, plainchant (Trowell).  The difference in the number of additional factors the authors incorporated into their article directly correlates to the length and degree of detail to which the article conveys fauxbourdon.  Fuller’s article, therefore, was the least detailed and also the shortest; Apel’s the most balanced of the three, in both content and length; and Trowell’s the most detailed and the longest of the three.

In general, research on fauxbourdon from Fuller’s European Musical Heritage, Harvard Dictionary, and New Grove Dictionary has yielded a holistic view of what fauxbourdon is, as well as disclosed differences in content, both subtle and noteworthy, amongst the sources.  Disparities in each sources’ purpose and authors’ perspective, gave rise to many of the differences.  While Fuller contributed information on fauxbourdon to support her main goal of describing fifteenth century sacred polyphony; the two dictionaries were supposed to stick precisely to the topic.  Harvard Dictionary fulfilled the latter with its conciseness, while New Grove Dictionary focused on fauxbourdon but more so from a historical, technical, and formal point of view.  The former was the most well-rounded article of all; Fuller concentrating on Dufay’s musical excerpt and Trowell on details, additional sources, and history.  Although all three sources did get down to the bottom line that fauxbourdon is a fifteenth century French compositional technique, the fact that there were major things upon which the authors disagreed, including the originator of fauxbourdon and the effect of fauxbourdon extemporization; and also that the authors focused on many different aspects of fauxbourdon should convey the underlying message that fauxbourdon remains a controversial area of study.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Apel, Willi, ed.  Harvard Dictionary of Music.  2nd ed.  Cambridge, Ma: The
           Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1972.  S.c. “Fauxbourdon.”
Fuller, Sarah.  The European Musical Heritage 800-1750.  New York: MacGraw
            Hill, 1986.
Brian Trowell: ‘Fauxbourn’, The New Grove Dictionary of MusicOnline ed. L.
          Macy (Accessed 3 October 2002), <http://www.grovemusic.com>