François Dufaut (c.1600 - ?) was a French lutenist and
composer of the Renaissance period. General consensus
dictates that French lutenist and composer François
Dufault was born around 1600, though some sources
postulate that his birthdate may have been as late as
1610; one contemporary chronicler notes that Dufault
studied with eminent lutenist Ennemond Gaultier.
Mention of Dufault isn't found until his first marriage
entered a register in Paris in 1629; Dufault's first
publication followed i...(+)
François Dufaut (c.1600 - ?) was a French lutenist and
composer of the Renaissance period. General consensus
dictates that French lutenist and composer François
Dufault was born around 1600, though some sources
postulate that his birthdate may have been as late as
1610; one contemporary chronicler notes that Dufault
studied with eminent lutenist Ennemond Gaultier.
Mention of Dufault isn't found until his first marriage
entered a register in Paris in 1629; Dufault's first
publication followed in 1631 with several pieces
included in Pierre Ballard's Tablature de Luth de
differens autheurs. Yet more of Dufault's pieces
appeared when Ballard's publication went into a second
edition in 1638 and these 20 or so compositions would
be the only works of Dufault to appear in print during
his lifetime. It has been suggested that Dufault may
have been the unnamed French lutenist Esaias Reusner
studied with in Poland between 1651 and 1654. Dufault
established himself in London in the later 1650s and
found a pupil in a noblewoman named Elizabeth Warwick;
mention of them playing "a most excellent duet" is
found in a 1665 letter from Dutch scientist Christiaan
Huygens. A 1672 letter from Huygens father -- the
composer and diplomat Constantijn Huygens -- refers to
Dufault as someone who had lately died.
Numerous testimonials to Dufault's artistry are known
from the seventeenth century, and this makes clear that
Dufault was one of the most admired lutenists of his
age. Ironically, very little of Dufault's music
survives from England; a vast amount of it comes from
sources in German-speaking lands, and Dufault is not
known to have visited there at all. Nevertheless, in
1701 -- some 30 years after Dufault died -- Viennese
lutenist Wenzel Ludwig Edler von Radolt wrote in the
preface to his own lute music that "the Manier and
style of Du Faut are complied with as much as possible,
for he can be called rightfully the most noble and best
master of the lute." Evidence suggests certain pieces
of Dufault were still in circulation even through the
time of Sylvius Leopold Weiss. Despite his lean
publication history, Dufault's work was primarily known
through manuscript copies and his music shows up in
some 90 seventeenth and eighteenth century manuscripts.
First edited into a single volume in 1964, Dufault's
work was later reprinted, with a large number of
freshly discovered pieces added, in a CNRS edition in
1988.
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