"A veritable dean of French musical life," wrote one recent scholar describing Claudin de Sermisy and his time. Sermisy consorted from an early point in his career with the best musicians the court of France could offer the world: Jean Mouton, Antoine de Longueval, Jean Richafort. He was known by the Medici Pope Leo X, as well as the Duke of Ferrara, and probably sang for both King François I and Henry VIII of England when they met at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. By the time of his death, numerous European musicians had dedicated works to him, and Pierre Certon and others lamented his passing in song. The foundation of his fame may have been his 170 or so chansons, many published in numerous editions and collections during his lifetime. Sermisy (with Sandrin) frequently receives credit for codifying the "Parisian" style of chanson, just as Janequin brought the narrative chanson to perfection. In our own time, it is once again the elegance, grace, and simplicity of Sermisy's "Parisian" chansons that bring him to our attention; Tant que je vivrai remains one of his finest.

Tant que je vivrai is in some ways a perfect example of Sermisy's Parisian style, though in others it remains quite anomalous. Sermisy actively sought the best and most refined of current French poetry to set; in this case, as in over 20 others, he chose verses by the estimable court poet Clément Marot. The text appears in the poet's 1532 collection Adolescence clémentine, but must have been written earlier, since Sermisy's chanson was printed in 1527. Unlike the bulk of French love poetry, Tant que je vivrai describes not an unhappy love, but rather a fulfilled one: the speaker is madly in love with the woman who is his fianceé! He looks forward to a lifetime of service to her, within marriage. Other than that, the poetic sentiments are elevated and conventional. Sermisy's setting, likewise, gracefully follows his best conventions: short phrases lead to obvious and clearcut cadences, simple homophonic textures obtain between the voices throughout. He offers in this song an elegant melody, one that easily lodges in the listener's ear. Repetition of its final phrases closes the song on a satisfying note. Unlike the majority of Sermisy's music, which though popular was forgotton soon after his death, Tant que je vivrai lived on, being reprinted no fewer than 12 times to as late as 1644.

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