The theme of lovers parting recurs as a plangent trope in fifteenth century song. Both Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois composed popular laments that began with the tearful "Farewell, my love:" Adieu m'amour, adieu ma joye and Adieu m'amour et ma maîtresse. A generation later, Alexander Agricola composed two separate settings of the Chanson à refrain text: Adieu m'amour et mon desir. The first setting uses three equal voices, while the second places a vocal tenor in the midst of two more florid outer voices more in the style of his instrumental song arrangements. One chanson manuscript inscribed for a Sienese noble family contains both of Agricola's settings adjacent to one another. Together, they provide a fascinating glimpse of the composer's mind at work—twice. Both of Agricola's settings of Adieu m'amour share the same tenor melody. It may represent a well-known tune, but it is unrelated to either Dufay's earlier chanson or Binchois'. In the first setting, the tenor clearly sings this melody at the outset, then deviates from it for a while, only to return at the end. The second setting hews more closely to the melody (in an AAB form) throughout. The first, more "vocal" setting alternates textures among the three equal voices: from a homophonic opening, to a more contrapuntal texture filled with melismas and evaded cadences, to an imitative emphasis (eight repetitions) of the word "Helas!" and a witty prolongation of the final paine. The second Adieu m'amour, in a more "instrumental" idiom, consistently uses a texture of two florid and disjunct voices set around the tenor's straightforward statements of the melody. Agricola does not, however, miss opportunities to enliven this text-setting: imitation in all voices again emphasizes the "Helas!" Furthermore, in this setting, he adds a poignant two-flat harmonization at the moment the speaker mourns his fidelity.

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