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Osellecto selvaggio

from A 14th​-​Century Salmagundi by Blue Heron

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lyrics

Osellecto selvaggio per stagione
Dolci versetti canta con bel modo,
Tale che grida forte chi non lodo.

Per gridar forte non si canta bene
Ma con soav’e dolce melodia
Si fa bel canto e ci vuol maestria.

Pochi l’hanno e tutti si fan maestri,
Fan ballate, madriali et motetti,
Tutti enfioran Filipi e Marchetti.

Sì si è piena la terra di magistroli
Che loco più non trovano discepoli.

-9 i.e. Philippe de Vitry and Marchetto of Padua


Translation:

A wild little bird during the season
sings sweet little verses in a beautiful style,
whereas those I do not praise shout loudly.

Loud shouting does not make for good singing,
but with smooth and sweet melody
one produces good singing, and this requires skill.

Few have it, yet all make themselves out to be masters:
they compose ballatas, madrigals and motets,
all puff themselves up as Philippes and Marchettos.

Thus the land is so full of little masters
that there is no room left for disciples.

Translations by Scott Metcalfe, Thomas Forrest Kelly, and Lawrence Rosenwald.

credits

from A 14th​-​Century Salmagundi, released September 4, 2020

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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

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