Pierre Fontaine

French composer of the transitional era between the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, and a member of the Burgundian School of composers, born c. 1380 in Rouen, died c. 1450. First a singer at the chapel of Philip the Bold, he became a clerk at Ste. Chapelle in Bourges in 1404. He was again a singer at the court chapel of Burgundy under John the Fearless, the new Duke of Burgundy, in 1415. When John died in 1419 Fontaine left the chapel and went to northern Italy, joining the singers in the chapel of Pope Martin V, where he probably remained through the early 1420s. Around the end of the decade he came back to Burgundy, where he sang in the chapel yet again, this time under Philip the Good, and where he remained at least until 1447. No record of his death survives, but a replacement for him was hired in 1451. Only a few of his compositions have survived, mainly rondeaux and one ballade, all for three voices.