We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Fors seullement contre ce qu​’​ay promis / Fors seullement l​’​actente

from Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1 by Blue Heron

/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    This disc comes in an attractive 4-panel wallet-style format, with a CD sleeve. There is no plastic tray, which makes for a greener (and more lightweight) package.

    Besides eleven songs by Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497), this disc includes two related works: the anonymous “En atendant vostre venue” from the recently-discovered Leuven Chansonnier (probably copied c. 1475 in the Loire Valley, where Ockeghem lived and worked), whose text borrows the first line of Ockeghem’s "Quant de vous seul", and "Au travail suis" by the composer Barbingant, which quotes both text and music from the opening of Ockeghem’s "Ma maistresse".

    Ockeghem was one of the most celebrated musicians of the fifteenth century and is one of the greatest composers of all time, every bit the equal of J.S. Bach in contrapuntal technique and profound expressivity, and like Bach able to combine the most rigorous intellectual structure with a beguiling sensuality. His two dozen songs set French lyric poetry in the courtly forms of the fifteenth century—rondeau, virelai, and ballade—to exquisitely crafted polyphony in which all voices are granted equally beautiful and compelling melodies.

    The CD booklet contains complete texts and translations and notes on the music and performance practice by Sean Gallagher (musicological adviser for "Ockeghem@600", Blue Heron’s project to perform the complete works of Johannes Ockeghem in a series of thirteen concert programs) and Blue Heron’s music director Scott Metcalfe.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      $20 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    13
    releases

    Get all 13 Blue Heron releases available on Bandcamp and save 15%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Guillaume de Machaut: Remede de Fortune, A 14th-Century Salmagundi, Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1, Cipriano de Rore: I madrigali a cinque voci, The Lost Music of Canterbury (Boxed Set), Anonymous: Missa sine nomine (Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, vol. 5), Christmas in Medieval England, Robert Jones: Missa Spes nostra (Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks, vol. 4), and 5 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $134.70 USD or more (15% OFF)

     

lyrics

Fors seullement contre ce qu’ay promys,
Et en tous lieux seray fort entremys
Et acquerray une belle aliance.
J’en ay desir voire dez mon enfance:
Point ne vouldroye avoir nulz anemys.

Mon vouloir j’ay tout en cela soubmis
Et hors de la ja ne ferai transmis,
Garder n’y veul ordre, sens ne prudence.

Fors seullement contre ce qu’ay promys,
Et en tous lieux seray fort entremys
Et acquerray une belle aliance.

Je cuide avoir en terre des amys
Et que en eulx ay ma fiance mis;
On doibt scavoir que n’ay nulle doubtance
Ou aultrement querroye ma desfiance,
Car je sceray de tout honneur remis.

Fors seullement contre ce qu’ay promys …

contratenor
Fors seullement l’actente que je meure …

ave only contrary to that which I have promised,
I shall be deeply engaged on all sides
and shall obtain a fair alliance.
I have desired this ever since childhood:
I would have no enemies whatsoever.

I have entirely submitted my will to this end
and from it shall not be moved,
nor will I respect order, sense, or prudence.

Save only contrary to that which I have promised,
I shall be deeply engaged on all sides
and shall obtain a fair alliance.

I believe I have friends in the land
and in them I have placed my trust;
let it be known that I have no doubts whatsoever,
for otherwise I would pursue my suspicions,
since I would be stripped of all honor.

Save only contrary to that which I have promised …

Contratenor
Save only the expectation that I shall die …

Translation by Scott Metcalfe

credits

from Johannes Ockeghem Complete Songs Vol. 1, released November 1, 2019
Megan Chartrand, Jason McStoots and Paul Guttry, voices

Engineering and mastering: Joel Gordon
Producer: Scott Metcalfe
Editing: Eric Milnes & Joel Gordon
Assistant Session Producers: Michael Barrett, Eric Milnes & Martin Near
Graphic Design: Melanie Germond
Cover photo: Young Woman with a Pink, c. 1485-90, attributed to Hans Memling (d. 1494, Bruges), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/437059)
Recorded at Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill
September 29-October 2 & October 28-30, 2018

Music composed by Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420-1497). All songs edited from original sources by Scott Metcalfe.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Blue Heron image

Blue Heron Boston, Massachusetts

Winner of the 2018 Gramophone Classical Music Award for Early Music (the first non-European group to win the award), Blue Heron (Scott Metcalfe, dir.) has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the “expressive intensity” of its interpretations. ... more

contact / help

Contact Blue Heron

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this track or account

If you like Blue Heron, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring Riley Pinkerton (aka The Rat Queen) from the theatrical NYC rockers, Castle Rat.
listen now