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Baldassare Donato was a notable composer of secular part-music in the late Renaissance. This work, a villanella for SATB voices, is written in the Neapolitan dialect. The text expresses a strong and colourful complaint against a woman, presumably an old woman, who is blamed for the singer's troubles with love. The words are vitriolic and dismissive, invoking curses and wishing ill fortune upon her. The composer sets this aggressive and passionate text with a directness and vigour appropriate to the vernacular and the subject matter, creating a lively and dramatic miniature.