François Dufault (before 1604 (?) – c. 1672) was a French lutenist and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Dufault was born in Bourges

Bourges

Bourges is a city in central France on the Yèvre river. It is the capital of the department of Cher and also was the capital of the former province of Berry.-History:...

, France. As a student of Denis Gaultier

Denis Gaultier

Denis Gaultier was a French lutenist and composer. He was a cousin of Ennemond Gaultier.-Life:...

, he enjoyed an excellent reputation as an instrumentalist, what is demonstrated in many contemporary sources where he was described as one of the greatest lutenist of his time. Almost no information is preserved about his life. He died, probably during the end of the 1660s, in England.

From his works has survived a collection of twelve lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....

 compositions in tablature

Tablature

Tablature is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches....

 besides a few individual works in manuscript or other compilations. His works are written with a lot of harmonic

Harmonic

A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

freedom and nearly in an improvisatory style.

Sources

• German Wikipedia article

External links

• T. Crawford: The historical importance of François Dufault and his influence on musicians outside France