Hellas pour quoy

Pierre Lescornet's Hellas pour quoy is a secular French chanson for STTB. It belongs to a tradition of Renaissance part-music where composers set poignant vernacular texts expressing intense personal feeling. The lyrics here plead for a response from a beloved whose indifference causes the singer great distress. The composer responds to this sorrowful plea with music that vividly portrays the lover's anguish and desperation. The text laments the lover's prolonged suffering and the absence of comfort, threatening to declare the beloved merciless and devoid of joy or friendship unless some solace is granted. Lescornet's setting captures the dramatic tension inherent in this passionate declaration.