This beautiful arrangement of Lassus’ Bon jour, mon coeur, expands the original 4-part piece into 8 parts, with 4 pairs of crossing parts.
This piece is taken from André Pevernage’s Livre quatrieme de Chansons (Antwerp, 1591). It is an extended parody of the 4-part chanson by Lassus, which can be found in volume 15 of our Renaissance Chansons series (RC 15). Another parody, but in 3-parts, was composed by Jean de Castro, (TM 12 ↣ )
In this work Pevernage took Lassus’ charming setting of a love poem by Ronsard, and extended it by antiphonal imitation. It is relatively unusual in employing eight parts for a piece of this kind.
André Pevernage was born in 1543 near Kortrijk (Courtrai) in what is now Belgium, and worked as a choirmaster in that town, and also in Bruges. By the time of the publication of his fourth book he was maitre de la chapelle at Antwerp; he died in that city in 1591.
(Bernard Thomas)
Translation:
Good day, my heart, good day, my sweet life,
Good day, my eye, good day, my sweet friend:
Ah good day, my pretty one,
My darling, good day,
My delight, my love,
My sweet springtime, my sweet young flower,
My sweet pleasure, my sweet dove,
My sparrow, my gentle turtle-dove
Good day, my sweet rebel!
