Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain Choral single edition SATB

Copious amounts of snow, wind, rain and sleet - Charles d’Orléans describes the coldest season of the year in his Rondeau Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain as so unpleasant. A good five hundred years later Claude Debussy musically rendered his verses. The musically transcribed images portray the indignant accusation against winter in agitated seconds and thirds and its homophonic “conspirator’s tone” curse. The depiction of summer, however, appears in tender archaic, flowing melodic arches. Debussy captures d’Orléans’ medieval verses and expertly translates them into his own musical language. In a very personal fashion he succeeds in spanning the arch between the Middle Ages and modernity. These purely a cappella pieces are unique in the composer’s œuvre.