Ung Gay Bergier - Thomas Crecquillon, 1543 (voice, harpsichord)

Madrid  • 

This Renaissance chanson by Thomas Crecquillon has quite the innocent-but-not text. Seemingly it was well-known and appreciated, since later diminutions (ornamented versions) were created on it, as the one by Riccardo Rognioni in my previous video on this channel. Text: "Ung gay bergier priait une bergiere en luy faisant du jeu d'amours requeste, allez, dict elle, tirez vous arriere, vostre parler je trouve malhonneste, ne pensez pas que feroye tel default, par quoy, cessez faire telle priere, car tu n'as pas la lance qui me fault." Translation: A merry shepherd was praying to a shepherdess making her a request to play the game of love, come on, she said, pull yourself back, I find your talk dishonest, do not think that I would make such a mistake, so stop praying such and such a prayer, because you don't have the spear I need. Crecquillon was a famous Franco-Flemish composer at the time, of whose life we don't know too much. This is not the only chanson he wrote: almost 200 chansons are by him. From Grove Online some interesting details: Unlike many of the composers of the Franco-Flemish school, he seems never to have left his home region for Italy or other parts of Europe. Because his chansons were imitative, it was Crecquillon's chansons which provided some of the best models for the later development of the instrumental canzona, the instrumental form which developed directly from the chanson. Mezzosoprano - Lobke Sprenkeling Harpsichord - Jorge López-Escribano