Amour rempli de pitié

This French chansons for ATTB voices would suit a programme of secular music. The text, by an unknown poet, describes love filled with pity and zeal. The lover is dying, so love itself is depicted as a force that tears the soul from the body. Love’s equipment – bow, quiver, cruel string, and sword – are all brought together in a new fire that transforms their heat into ice, even Venus’s torch. This fire erases all memory of past affections, as the poem contemplates the paradoxical nature of love’s pain and pleasure.