Du bon du cueur is a courtly chanson of the early 16th Century. The poem hearkens back to 15th Century life, but the melody that resonates throughout this recording was first set by Jean Mouton, a contemporary of Josquin DePrez and court composer to the French Kings. Capella Alamire was formed in 1984 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the purpose of exploring the repertoire of the Renaissance. The word Alamire is a solmization term for the pitch A, sung as la, mi, or re; it was also the pseudonym of a Flemish music scribe employed by the Habsburg court at the beginning of the 16th century in the region of present-day Belgium and northern France, an area that produced many of the greatest composers and singers of the time.
