Gilles Henri Hayne

Gilles Henri (Gilles) Hayne (28/07/1590 - 28/05/1650) was a Belgian composer of church music. Hayne was born in Liege in 1590 and spent his entire career there. The connection explains the composition of this Requiem Mass in 1643. Mary, Dowager Queen of France, had died in exile in Cologne in the previous year, and the French dignitaries arranged to meet the funeral cortege at Liege. Hayne, by then one of the city’s leading musicians, was commissioned to compose the appropriate Mass.