[+] Hewitt, Helen. "Fors seulement and the Cantus Firmus Technique of the Fifteenth Century." In Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac on his 70th Birthday, ed. Gustave Reese and Robert J. Snow, 91-126. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969.
The rondeau Fors seulement seems to have inspired imitation by composers of numerous secular chansons in much the way that L'Homme armé inspired Mass settings. Thirty-five surviving works are based on Fors seulement. Although the rondeau itself was written before 1470, twenty-six of the Fors seulement parodies are based on Ockeghem's three-part setting, which appeared five years later. Ockeghem's superius is the part most often borrowed by other composers, but it is often placed in a different voice using a transposed mode. Two later sources seem to point toward the creation of a new cantus firmus, which served as the model for the setting (probably by Matthaeus Pipelare) published by Petrucci in Canti B in 1502. Pipelare's setting, in turn, served as a model for Antoine de Févin's setting using Fors seulement la mort rather than the original Fors seulement l'attente. Willaert's five-part setting is drawn in turn from Févin. Appendices list all thirty-five settings with their sources, and trace the lineage of borrowing from Ockeghem to Willaert.
Works: Antoine de Févin: Fors seulement (100, 116, 123, 124, 126); Adrian Willaert: Fors seulement (101-02, 117, 126).
Sources: Johannes Ockeghem: Fors seulement (94-96, 108-09, 122); Anonymous: Fors seulement (97-98, 115, 123-4); Mattheus Pipelare: Fors seulement (98-100, 115-16, 125, 126).
Index Classifications: 1400s, 1500s
Contributed by: Felix Cox
