Description
The noël tune Une Jeune Pucelle is one of a group of popular French melodies of the renaissance and baroque periods that joined sacred texts with secular music and dance. These simple, rustic tunes were used for singing and dancing by aristocrats, middle classes and peasants alike during the festive period, and also appeared in many more formalised instrumental settings for use in church services and court performances, as demonstrated by composers such as Charpentier, Daquin, Lebegue and Dandrieu.
The melody of this particular noël is one of the most widely used by composers during the renaissance and baroque periods. Its most famous iterations include the old French song Une Jeune Fillette, the Italian dance La Monica, and The Queen’s Almain, set for keyboard by William Byrd.
The collection of noëls from which this piece is taken has an uncertain provenance – almost certainly originally composed by the organist Pierre Dandrieu in the 1720s, the collection was revised and expanded by his nephew, Jean-François – a successful composer, organist and harpsichordist who was made organist of the Chapelle Royale in 1721. The Noëls are thought to have been published by his sister, Jeanne-Françoise Dandrieu, herself also a professional organist, after his death in 1759.
Like many noël settings for organ Une Jeune Pucelle is in the form of cumulative variations; the original organ version has been freely adapted here for performance on recorders.
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