Mille regretz is a four-voice chanson from the 16th century whose attribution to Josquin des Prez is almost certainly erroneous.[1] The song evidently draws some of its melodic material from Josquin's securely attributed five-voice Du mien amant.
Mille regretz was a favourite of the Emperor Charles V and it is known in Spanish as La canción del Emperador.[2] Apart from its plangent simplicity, musicians were presumably attracted by the royal connection: Spanish reworkings from the 16th-century include a mass setting by Cristóbal de Morales and variations for vihuela by Luis de Narváez and there is a chanson (SATTBB) by court composer Nicolas Gombert.
Text: Mille regretz de vous abandonner Et d'eslonger vostre fache amoureuse, Jay si grand dueil et paine douloureuse, Quon me verra brief mes jours definer.
In Modern French: Mille regrets de vous abandonner et de m'éloigner de votre visage amoureux. J’ai si grand deuil et peine douloureuse qu’on verra vite mes jours prendre fin.
English Translation: A thousand regrets at deserting you and leaving behind your loving face, I feel so much sadness and such painful distress, that it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.
Translations differ in their interpretation of the words 'fache/face amoureuse' in line 2 (variously "amorous anger" or "loving face").
↑Joshua Rifkin, "Who Really Composed Mille regretz?," in Quomodo cantabimus canticum? Studies in Honor of Edward H. Roesner, ed. David Butler Cannata, Gabriela Ilnitchi Currie Rena Charnin Mueller, and John Louis Nadas (Wisconsin: American Institute of Musicology, 2008), 187–208.
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