Adieu mes amours was a popular secular monophonic

Monophony

In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave . If the entire melody is sung by two voices or a choir with an interval between the notes or in...

 chanson

Chanson

A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...

 of the late 15th century. Many settings of this tune are in fact based on the c. 1480 setting by Josquin des Prez

Josquin Des Prez

Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...

, in which the lower two voices are in quasi-canon, and the upper two voices are freer. The tune itself is in a simple ABA' form. It appeared in many manuscript

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

s and prints from many countries, including in Ottaviano Petrucci's

Ottaviano Petrucci

Ottaviano Petrucci was an Italian printer. His Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet music printed from movable type. Actually that distinction belongs to the Roman printer Ulrich Han's Missale Romanum of 1476...

 Odhecaton A.

Josquin's version

Josquin's chanson was used as the basis for works by a number of other composers, including a version by Heinrich Isaac

Heinrich Isaac

Heinrich Isaac was a Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer of south Netherlandish origin. He wrote masses, motets, songs , and instrumental music. A significant contemporary of Josquin des Prez, Isaac influenced the development of music in Germany...

, and the five-voice chanson "Vous seulement" by Simon Moreau

Simon Moreau

Simon Moreau was a composer of the Franco-Flemish School. He published compositions including settings of Vous Seulement and Sancta et immaculata, 1553.-References:...

. The setting by Jean Mouton

Jean Mouton

Jean Mouton was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was famous both for his motets, which are among the most refined of the time, and for being the teacher of Adrian Willaert, one of the founders of the Venetian School....

 seems to be unrelated to the setting by Josquin. Although "Adieu mes amours" was originally a secular chanson, it was used in a number of mass settings such as , Missa "Adieu mes amours" which uses both parody

Parody mass

A parody mass is a musical setting of the mass, typically from the 16th century, that uses multiple voices of another pre-existing piece of music, such as a fragment of a motet or a secular chanson, as part of its melodic material. It is distinguished from the two other most prominent types of...

 and cantus firmus compositional techniques by Francesco de Layolle

Francesco de Layolle

Francesco de Layolle , was an Italian composer and organist of the Renaissance...

, and another Missa "Adieu mes amours" by Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht

Jacob Obrecht was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe in the late 15th century, being eclipsed by only Josquin des Prez after his death.-Life:...

.

The first attribution to Josquin of this chanson is in the Casanatense chansonnier

Chansonnier

A chansonnier is a manuscript or printed book which contains a collection of chansons, or polyphonic and monophonic settings of songs, hence literally "song-books," although some manuscripts are so called even though they preserve the text but not the music A chansonnier is a manuscript or...

 of around 1480, which was probably put together to celebrate the betrothal of Isabella d'Este

Isabella d'Este

Isabella d'Este was Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court...

 to Francesco Gonzaga

Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua

Francesco II Gonzaga was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1484 until his death.-Biography:Gonzaga was born in Mantua, the son of Marquess Federico I Gonzaga. He had a career as a condottiero acting as Venice's commander from 1489 to 1498...

. The chansonnier includes works by many of the great composers of the period, including Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

, Johannes Martini

Johannes Martini

Johannes Martini was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance.-Life:He was born in Brabant around 1440, but information about his early life is scanty. He probably received his early training in Flanders, as did most of the composers of his generation...

 and Alexander Agricola

Alexander Agricola

Alexander Agricola was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. A prominent member of the Grande chapelle, the Habsburg musical establishment, he was a renowned composer in the years around 1500, and his music was widely distributed throughout Europe...

. It included six chansons attributed to Josquin, each with a different spelling of his name, suggesting that the copyist was not aware of Josquin prior to this, lessening the likelihood that the chanson was mistakenly attributed to Josquin.

An issue in the performance practice of Josquin's setting of this chanson is whether it was a vocal piece or an instrumental piece. Although there is underlay of the text in the Florence 2794 manuscript, the music does not fit well with the rondeau

Rondeau (music)

The rondeau was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on the contemporary popular poetic rondeau form. It is distinct from the 18th century rondo, though the terms are likely related...

 refrain of the original. At least ten other contemporary manuscripts include only the incipit

Incipit

Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...

and no other text.