In 1516, the workshop of the calligrapher, merchant, and spy known as Petrus Alamire produced a large manuscript collection for the Hapsburg regent of the Netherlands, Marguerite of Austria; much of her personality and life are mirrored in its pages. Next to courtly and antiquated French chansons of Ockeghem, which she would have known as a child, stand many up-to-date compositions of the star Hapsburg composer, Pierre de la Rue, several of them describing sadness and regrets in love. La Rue's only known setting of a Flemish text is the only composition in that language in Marguerite's chanson album, a four-voiced rendition of a popular melody, "Mijn hert altijt heeft verlangen" (My heart always has longing for you, my beloved). Two other settings of the tune (one of them somewhat more ornamented) survive for three voices, one anonymous and one by a Cornelius Rigo de Bergis. La Rue apparently knew both, and quoted elements of Cornelius' in his four-voiced setting.

La Rue and both his predecessors give the popular tune in the uppermost voice as cantus firmus. Fragments of the melody, however, drift into the other voices by means of imitation. The classically drawn points of imitation and clear cadences yield a lucid structure; the complete musical piece follows the symmetrical ABA arch of the borrowed melody. "Mijn hert" apparently enjoyed great popularity among La Rue's secular works. Not only did it find its way into Marguerite's private collection, but four other Alamire workshop manuscripts (not to mention others elsewhere in Europe) preserve it, and Ottaviano Petrucci printed an edition of it as early as 1504.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.