This ballade is splendidly melismatic. Almost every syllable is set to at least two notes, frequently the music seems to jump, with little jolts of its own internal electricity, as the discantus pushes upwards, outwards, melisma the fingers of a fine caressing hand upon us. Melisma is one of the Renaissance compositional techniques that still seems to be able to evoke a direct sensation of unadulterated joy in a modern listener.

Listen, for example to the opening phrase: it sets the pattern for the rest of the piece. After a very brief chant on the first three syllables, the discantus spins out into sweet, buttery melisma, creating especially gorgeous effects by the constantly changing vowels; slow arpeggios of vowel color. The voices verge on regressing into instrumental abstraction, losing the sense of them as distinct from other instruments, an effect more often heard in sacred music. This is an "alleluia" to "ma maistresse," not the other usual recipient of such praise. She's probably more responsive than Him anyhow.

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