Although the early two-part songs of Landini tend to be heavily influenced by dance forms and dance rhythms in one way or another, dance and everything associated with it are entirely absent from the bitterly pained, surprisingly powerful song Ochi dolente mie. With dance gone, we lose of course the springy profane joy sensed by many in works like Ecco la primavera. While the rhythm may still be supple, it is no longer buoyant, for spring has passed. In its stead comes cruel, ingenerous, summer.

We judge by the quietly fierce, spare setting that Landini wanted to let the words themselves do a good part of the expressive work. Although the text isn't set with the impressionistic flair of later composers, Landini never obscures a syllable. It's as if he was himself deeply moved and wanted them to draw special attention to them.

There are, for instance, lovely, translucent passages of parallel thirds and sixths. Highly dissonant intervals—major sevenths and ninths—frequently fall on accented beats, intensifying the sense of anguish. These often open the expressive passages of short notes; the flint strikes the stone, sparks fly. We all know the danger of forest fire in summer, and the work is enveloped in a burning sense of urgency and pain. There is but one moment of redemption: at the eighth bar of the refrain a brief solo passage lands lightly upon the ear, beautiful and unexpected. It is the touch of grace, the only sign that some good may still come to the desperate narrator of the poem.

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