If Landini's development is charted along five relatively distinct phases, this ballata dates from the fourth phase. The key to knowing its placement is that of the three voices only two, the top and bottom, are furnished with texts. The basic scheme of the piece, typical of Landini's later, heavily French-influenced songs, is basically an extremely early form of melody/accompaniment that was current long before monody was invented.

The bottom (tenor) voice is mainly in long notes, and lacks any rhythmic interest. Because of this, when instruments whose timbres blend well are used, that part seems to disappear ghostlike into the background. Both sections begin with the topmost and bottom voice alone for one bar, after which the third voice is stirred into the mixture, and blurs out the supporting lower part. The harmonies created, frequently triadic, although many measures contain no triads at all, could be merely the resonance of the space the music is being performed in. But what's perhaps most lovely is its duet-like style. The two topmost voices play off of each other, or even happily compete, trading places as the most elaborate line. It speaks of that ease, the uncanny naturalness of touch, of a true poet.

He is a fair bit freer here with dissonances than in many other works, even allowing some of these to fall on accented beats, and in all the rushing around some fairly strange chains of harmonies flutter by. His rhythms have by now entirely left behind the stifling constraints of dance form, their influence fully digested into something new. Bar lines in modern transcriptions can only be guidelines for performers, since they represent nothing inherent to this gossamer music. Phrase lengths are uneven, the phrases themselves overlap in unpredictable ways, triplets skip merrily across the bars and many quick sixteenth-note figures bubble up from every corner. Rather than inviting the listeners to dance, the polyphonic lines are made to dance with each other.

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