On this first day

Pour maintenir la coutume jolye
- Ce jour de l'an, Guillaume Dufay

On this first day of 2012 I wish my reader(s) a happy new year and the best wishes for the days ahead. To celebreate the occasion I bring to you a new year's song by Guillaume Dufay, one of my all-time favourite composers.

Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474) was a Flemish composer of great merit and widespread fame, starting his education at Cambrai and retaining a lifelong connection to his old alma mater. During his career he stayed with prominent princes and even spent a year at the Papal choir, composing masterpieces of sacred and secular character alike. Among his perhaps most well-known works is Nuper Rosarum Flores, composed for the consecration of the Duomo in Florence, a piece whose musical structure echoes the architecture of Solomon's Temple as described in The First Book of Kings.

So with this secular chanson by Dufay I hope for a blessed year ahead to everyone.

Ce jour de l'an voudray joye mener,

Chanter, danser, et mener chiere lie,
Pour maintenir la coutume jolye
Que tous amants sont tenus de garder.

Et pour certain tant me voudray poier
Que je puisse choisir nouvelle amie -
Ce jour de l'an voudray joye mener,
Chanter, danser, et mener chiere lie -

A laquelle je puisse presenter
Cuer, corps et biens, sans faire despartie.
He, dieus d'amours, syés de ma partie,
Que Fortune si ne me puist grever.

Ce jour de l'an voudray joye mener,
Chanter, danser, et mener chiere lie,
Pour maintenir la coutume jolye

Que tous amants sont tenus de garder.