Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Vielle by Anna Vasylchenko, lute by Ido Romano, vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is another song by renowned 14th century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, arguably one of the most important musicians in European history, and one of my personal favourite musicians.
The arrangement is historically informed and utilises the lute, the vielle, guittern, and a variety of drums used in Europe during the Middle-Ages. The arrangement is entirely monophonic, as purely monophonic songs were still the norm even at this late stage of European history, and the vertical, polyphonic and harmonically driven forms were still rising to the dominant status they would enjoy in later centuries.
I forewent using any melismas not written in the score in my vocal delivery for this one, both because most data seems to suggest that the highly florid vocal style died out as a normative way of singing in Europe by the late 1200's, and also because the melodic structure of this song seems not to allow many spontaneous melismas, and the melismas are instead written down within the core, notated melody itself, a phenomenon we can observe in many Middle-Eastern compositions of the same era. For more information on our knowledge of Medieval European music, I refer you to the videos in my Epic Talking playlist.
The pronunciation I used is the conventional pseudo-historical pronunciation we use in French for most early French music and contains some aspects of the era's phonology, but probably not all of them.
Lyrics in Middle-French:
J'aim sans penser laidure
Et ay lonctemps amé
Celle où Diex et Nature
Ont mis tant de bonté
Que toute creature
D'onneur a sormonté
Or m'est dure
Sans mesure
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardure
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
Sa manier seüre
Douce et simple, à mon gré
Et la riche faiture
De sa plaisant biauté
Par leur douce pointure
M'ont conquis et outré
Or m'est dure
Sans mesurе
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardurе
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
Mais ce n'est pas droiture
Qu'einsi pour loyauté
Soie à desconfiture
Car j'ai sans fausseté
Ma dame nette et pure
Servi et honnouré
Or m'est dure
Sans mesure
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardure
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
English translation:
I love, free of dolour,
And have loved, to excess,
She whom God, and Nature,
Did with such virtue bless,
That she in honour
Exceeds all, I confess.
Now harshness
Sans measure,
Since she’s no pity
For the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
Her calm assured manner,
Sweet and honest, to my eye,
And each rich feature
Of her pleasing beauty nigh,
With many a dart
Conquer and slay my heart.
Now harshness
Sans measure,
For she’s no pity
On the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
And yet tis not right, I’m sure,
That thus for loyalty
I must feel discomfiture,
For I lack all falsity,
My lady sweet and pure,
I serve honourably;
Now harshness
Sans measure,
For she’s no pity
On the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
Vielle by Anna Vasylchenko, lute by Ido Romano, vocals & arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is another song by renowned 14th century French composer Guillaume de Machaut, arguably one of the most important musicians in European history, and one of my personal favourite musicians.
The arrangement is historically informed and utilises the lute, the vielle, guittern, and a variety of drums used in Europe during the Middle-Ages. The arrangement is entirely monophonic, as purely monophonic songs were still the norm even at this late stage of European history, and the vertical, polyphonic and harmonically driven forms were still rising to the dominant status they would enjoy in later centuries.
I forewent using any melismas not written in the score in my vocal delivery for this one, both because most data seems to suggest that the highly florid vocal style died out as a normative way of singing in Europe by the late 1200's, and also because the melodic structure of this song seems not to allow many spontaneous melismas, and the melismas are instead written down within the core, notated melody itself, a phenomenon we can observe in many Middle-Eastern compositions of the same era. For more information on our knowledge of Medieval European music, I refer you to the videos in my Epic Talking playlist.
The pronunciation I used is the conventional pseudo-historical pronunciation we use in French for most early French music and contains some aspects of the era's phonology, but probably not all of them.
Lyrics in Middle-French:
J'aim sans penser laidure
Et ay lonctemps amé
Celle où Diex et Nature
Ont mis tant de bonté
Que toute creature
D'onneur a sormonté
Or m'est dure
Sans mesure
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardure
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
Sa manier seüre
Douce et simple, à mon gré
Et la riche faiture
De sa plaisant biauté
Par leur douce pointure
M'ont conquis et outré
Or m'est dure
Sans mesurе
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardurе
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
Mais ce n'est pas droiture
Qu'einsi pour loyauté
Soie à desconfiture
Car j'ai sans fausseté
Ma dame nette et pure
Servi et honnouré
Or m'est dure
Sans mesure
N'elle n'a pité
De l'ardure
Que j'endure
Pour sa grant biauté
English translation:
I love, free of dolour,
And have loved, to excess,
She whom God, and Nature,
Did with such virtue bless,
That she in honour
Exceeds all, I confess.
Now harshness
Sans measure,
Since she’s no pity
For the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
Her calm assured manner,
Sweet and honest, to my eye,
And each rich feature
Of her pleasing beauty nigh,
With many a dart
Conquer and slay my heart.
Now harshness
Sans measure,
For she’s no pity
On the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
And yet tis not right, I’m sure,
That thus for loyalty
I must feel discomfiture,
For I lack all falsity,
My lady sweet and pure,
I serve honourably;
Now harshness
Sans measure,
For she’s no pity
On the ardour
I must endure,
Because of her great beauty.
