Ockeghem, Quant de vous seul je pers la veue

Quant de vous seul je pers la veue 3v · Ockeghem, Johannes

Appearance in the group of related chansonniers:

*Dijon ff. 36v-37 »Quant de vous seul je pers la veue« 3v Okeghem (unicum) PDF · Facsimile

Editions: Droz 1927 no.32, Ockeghem 1992 p. 83.

Text: : Rondeau cinquain; full text in Dijon; also in Jardin 1501 f. 91.

Quant de vous seul je pers la veue
de qui tant chiere suis tenue,
mon mal lors si tresfort m’assault
qu’a peu que le cueur ne me fault,
tant suis de douleur esperdue.

Pour estre vostre devenue
plus que nul qui soit soubz la nue,
toute ma joie me default

quant de vous seul je pers la veue
de qui tant chiere suis tenue,
mon mal lors si tresfort m’assault.

Dont je voi bien que je suis nue
de tous biens comme beste mue
a qui de plus riens il ne chault,
car je sçais bien qu’estre me fault
seulle de tous biens despourveue,

quant de vous seul je pers la veue
de qui tant chiere suis tenue,
mon mal lors si tresfort m’assault
qu’a peu que le cueur ne me fault,
tant suis de douleur esperdue.

When I lose sight of you alone
by whom I am held so dear,
then my pain assails me so very strongly
that nearly my heart breaks,
I am so overwhelmed by grief.

Having become yours
more than any one else under the heaven,
all my joy leaves me

when I lose sight of you alone
by whom I am held so dear,
then my pain assails me so very strongly.

Therefore I understand well that I am stripped
of all goods like a shedding animal,
which nothing anymore keeps warm,
for I know well that I must be
alone, deprived of all good things,

when I lose sight of you alone
by whom I am held so dear,
then my pain assails me so very strongly
that nearly my heart breaks,
I am so overwhelmed by grief.

Evaluation of the source:

The Dijon scribe copied this song into the Dijon chansonnier with few errors. The tight spacing of the notes, short values in tempus imperfectum, soon made the writing of the words come completely out of synchronization with the music.

Comments on text and music:

The sad rondeau depicting female loneliness, is set for wide-ranging voices, the upper voice covers an octave and a fourth (a-d'') and the tenor and contratenor each an octave and a sixth (A-f'). Both core voices are melodically strongly profiled with a slight preponderance of the upper voice, while the contratenor changes between supporting the two-part structure below the tenor and placing itself between the other parts.

The very expressive setting is varied. Syncopated declamation alternates with passages in more regular rhythms, and simultaneous word-setting alternates with imitation between the core voices close to canon, and the second section opens with three-part imitation at the fifth and at the octave. The sound of the song is carefully managed. The Dorian song is notated without any hexachordal signatures. The implied flats pull the sound towards F, which is contrasted with Mixolydian sounding passages based on G; see for example the second section, which is brought back to the flat side by a carefully placed accidental flat in the tenor (b. 28).

Even if this song by Ockeghen is preserved in the Dijon chansonnier only, it may have been quite wellknown in its time. The poem made its way into Verard’s the Jandin de Plaisance of 1501, and its opening line is quoted in the anonymous rondeau quatrain »En atendant vostre venue« in the Leuven chansonnier, its setting (in the fourth line) possibly inspired by Ockeghem’s music. A few years later the poem was set again in a paraphrased version as »Quant de vous seulle je pers la venue«, which is preserved in MS Copenhagen, The Royal Library, Ny Kgl. Samling 1848 2° dating from around 1520. The anonymous setting belongs stylistically to the generation of Compere and Agricola.

PWCH November 2019