A single autograph letter of Dufay's survives, addressed to Piero and Giovanni de'Medici in Florence, dated February 22, 1456, written in Geneva. In the brief letter he mentions "some chansons which I made recently while I was in France with Monseigneur de Savoye at the request of several lords of the king's household," which he is sending. Also mentioned are four works recently composed as laments for the fall of Constantinople in May 1453. O tres piteulx, for four, is the only one of these historical laments that has survived. Its impossible to know how much of his music has really been lost, nor if Dufay, who said the texts had been sent to him from Naples, had a personal concern with the events or if the pieces were written at someone's request. But Dufay's connections with the Byzantines were strong enough that he may indeed have felt personal sorrow at the Empire's fall.

The style of the chanson shows a mixture of techniques drawn from motet composition, a mixing of genres that can be heard in other singular works by Dufay and his contemporaries. Here the tenor sings a chant that appears once in each half of the piece, and each half begins with a paraphrase of the tenor line before it enters. This seems to be a deliberate allusion to the isorhythmic motet form, which was used for highly ceremonial occasions, such as the dedication of new churches or coronations. O tres piteulx, a lament on the fall of an empire, therefore ghosts official, pompous isorhythmic form, painfully recalling past glory in a purely musical way. It is a chanson constructed as if out of the ruins of isorhythmic grandeur. As such, O tres piteulx suggests the true proportions of tragedy. His contemporaries would certainly have heard the device, and it would doubtless have increased the pathos for them.

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