Ockeghem, Tant fuz gentement resjouy

Tant fuz gentement resjouy 3v · Ockeghem, Johannes

Appearance in the five chansonniers:

*Nivelle ff. 56v-58 »Tant fuz gentement resjouy« 3v Okeghem · Edition - Facsimile

Edition: Ockeghem 1992 p. 91.

Text: Bergerette; full text:

Tant fuz gentement resjouy
et tant fuz par amours jouy (1)
me tenir au vueil davant tous
de vostre gentil cuer tresdoulx
qu’oncques puis sur moy ne jouy
le mien tresdouloureux courroux.

Si haultement avez party
celuy qui de vous n’a party
son cuer de vous amer tousjours

par cy tresgracieux party
l’avez plaisanment departy
du mal qu’il eust mis au dessoubs.

Mon leal cuer de dueil nercy,
taint en desespere soucy, (2)
aloing de toute joye, escoux,
m’avez comme aforce rescoux
de mort dont sans nulle mercy
actendoye les dangereux coupx.

Tant fuz gentement resjouy
et tant fuz par amours jouy
me tenir au vueil davant tous
de vostre gentil cuer tresdoulx
qu’oncques puis sur moy ne jouy
le mien tresdouloureux courroux.

I have been so gently pleased
and for love so delighted
to remain above all others at the service
of your noble and sweet heart
that never since my painful rage
can take hold over mine.

So grandly have you rewarded
him who has not detached from you
his heart, loving you always,

that by this most gracious choice
you have kindly deflected him
from the pain that had overcome him.

My loyal heart, blackened from sorrow,
tainted by despairing anguish,
far from all joy, shaken,
you have forcefully rescued me
from death, where without mercy
I awaited the dangerous blows.

I have been so gently pleased
and for love so delighted
to remain above all others at the service
of your noble and sweet heart
that never since my painful rage
can take hold over mine.

1) line 2, “par amours jouy” is missing three syllables.
2) line 14, ”... en despere ...” is missing two syllables.

Evaluation of the source:

The main scribe copied this unique rondeau into Nivelle chansonnier with very few errors. The only serious one is the three semibreves and their accompanying words, which are missing in the upper voice bars 7-8. A corner was probably torn from the scribe's original, and he has left space empty so that they could be inserted if a better source should turn up. In Nivelle, the song is entered right after the four-part “S'elle m'amera je ne scay / Petite camusete” (ff. 55v-56), which is also attributed to “Okeghem”, in a series of five songs alternately by Busnoys and Ockeghem.

Comments on text and music:

The poem is a somewhat fickle, artful bergerette with six lines in the refrain (sixain) and more than rich rhymes, which in some pairs of lines try to achieve rimes equivocées. It is actually a happy love song, but the poet's thoughts seem to revolve more about all the hardships his heart may have been exposed to. The musical setting is compact, almost syllabic, with the second and third lines combined in a longer musical phrase just like the fifth and sixth lines are. In this way the Dorian setting ends up with only three articulated cadences in the refrain (b. 18 to E, b. 26 to A and b. 40 to D) and two in the couplets to A and D (bb. 56 and 65).

In keeping with the tone of the poem, the mood of the music is rather peculiar. It is evident that an important effect is that the words of the text are articulated simultaneously in the three voices for long stretches, especially when the superius and tenor, which are placed an octave apart (c'-d'' and c-f'), move in parallel in thirds, sixths or tenths. Therefore, imitation between the superius and tenor voices occurs only sporadically. When the tenor brings the text in a staggered manner, the other two voices make room for its words to be heard (see bb. 23-26, 20-34 or 48-50). The contratenor is in the same range as the tenor (A-e'), alternately above and below, and its text can be organised so that it alternately connects to the superius or tenor. The movements of the voices are unusually linear; the upper voices are almost exclusively stepwise, and this also has an impact on the contratenor (see for example bb. 19-27), which gives rise to some unusual concords and some dissonances. These elements together give the refrain, sung at a calm speaking pace, a lyrically subdued, almost dreamy presence.

The contrast between the refrain and the couplets is ensured partly by a brighter sound – the core voices change to the upper part of their ranges – and partly by a change of mensuration, from tempus imperfectum to imperfectum diminutum. This change surely should not be understood as a doubling of the tempo. Rather, it is the same tempo relationship as in other bergerettes, where the refrain is in tempus perfectum. That is, a change from a mensura in the refrain on unhurried semibreves to a mensura under imperfectum diminutum on breves somewhat slower than the preceding semibreves. Ockeghem explored this rhythmic relationship in for example the three-part Missa Quinti toni. [1]

PWCH August 2026

[1] See further the Introduction to Johannes Ockeghem, Missa Quinti toni. Edited with an introduction by Peter Woetmann Christoffersen, June 2021, pp. xxi-xxiii.