Renaissance music: Fors seulement (Ockeghem & Ghiselin, c. 1500)

[Martin Jonas]

I. Johannes Ockeghem (d. 1497): "Fors seulement l'attente" à 3 - 0:00
II. Johannes Ghiselin (aka Verbonnet) (fl. 1491-1508): "Fors seulement" à 4 - 2:43
From "Liber Fridolini Sichery", St. Gallen, c. 1500

"Fors seulement" is a French renaissance chanson, popular as a basis for variations and as a cantus firmus. An early version is attributed to the Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem in the mid-15th century - this is sometimes called "Fors seulement l'attente" to distinguish it from his similarly titled "Fors seulement contre".

There are about 30 surviving settings of the song. Ockeghem's "Fors seulement l'attente" is the earliest and best-known of them, with most of the others being by Flemish composers of the following two generations, late 15th/early 16th century, who used either Ockeghem's soprano or his tenor line as the basis for their own variations.

Eight of these settings survive in a manuscript song book written in Flanders around 1500 and brought by the organist Fridolin Sichery to the Abbey of St. Gallen in Switzerland, where it still remains.

I have recorded two of the St. Gallen settings, performed from the very nice free PDF of the Sichery song book at:

http://victorfreyer.com/Ein-Altes-Spielbuch-I.pdf

(Edition Williamson copyright by Victor Freyer).

This video includes Ockeghem's original setting for three voices, and a more complex setting for four voices by the later Flemish composer Johannes Ghiselin (aka "Verbonnet").

Played on two mandolins and tenor guitar, with a second tenor guitar taking the additional part in the Ghiselin variations.

Soprano: 1915 Luigi Embergher mandolin
Alto: Mid-Missouri M-0W mandolin
Tenor/Bassus: Vintage Viaten tenor guitar



Martin