Sincere thanks to Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir for this beautiful recording. For song description and sheet music, see below.

Description: This is a brand new SATB arrangement of the haunting chanson — “Malheureux cueur” by Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474) — originally a 3-part song written for soloist plus 2 instruments.

The evocative lyrics depict a narrator — directly singing to his heart — begging his heart to let go. He’s fallen in love with a girl — who’s clearly not in love with him — but the heart persists and won’t let go.

An English translation of the 15th century lyrics by Le Rousselet can be found here: https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=89566.

Sincere thanks go to the Rocky Mountain Chamber Choir for this beautiful recording. I would also like to give a shout out to the Boston-based Blue Heron Ensemble for introducing me to the haunting music of Guillaume Dufay and this song in particular.

And a special note of thanks goes to Helen Lucker to whom this song is dedicated and to the other members of the Ottawa-based Ad hoc Chorale, who tested out an early version of this arrangement in one of our informal workshops and offered valuable comments.

Sheet music (SATB): contact rain@grampy.ca.