Faulte d'argens

Cavazzoni' s “Intavolatura cioè recercari, canzoni, himni, magnificat” published in Venice in 1542 was a work which laid the foundation for the literature of Italian keyboard music. This collection contains a composition based on Josquin' s chanson Faulte d'argens but differs from it in the treatment of the themes. It goes beyond the limits of mere arrangement and stresses the contrapuntal aspects rather than the purely virtuoso. (S.B. Potter, The variation canzona for keyboard instruments in Southern Italy and Italy and Austria in the seventeenth century, Boston University, 1954, p. 26)

It may be interesting to listen to the original Josquin Desprez’s chanson. Here it is a link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eODh4xOa460&list=RDeODh4xOa460

This is the original text of the chanson:

Faulte d'argent c'est douleur non pareille
se ie le dis las ie scay bien pourquoy
sans de quibus il se fault tenir quoy
femme qui dort pour argent se reveille

(English translation:
Being poor is a great pain.
And alas, I know it but all too well.
The penniless have to lay low,
since sleeping women will only wake for cash)

Deprez’s score is attached