The Copenhagen Chansonnier (Det kongelige bibliotek of Copenhagen Chansons d'Amour Thott 291 8º) is a collection of 33 polyphonic pieces, most of them for three voices, with a few pieces for four voices. All of them with French text, written in white mensural notation. The collection was written at the end of the XV century, and it is a good example of the franco-flemish counterpoint style. All these pieces are love songs that approach the theme of love through different lenses including devotion love, erotic love, and painful love, among others.  

These pieces were transcribed to the modern notation, and after that to the lute tabulature notation, or for lute and voices. It is also an intensive work of interpretation of that music since the notation in the manuscript is not precise enough to make a simple transcription. That is why, although there are transcriptions of this Chansonnier available, it is necessary to work with the original source to create a new version for lute. For this project, I use a 5-course lute (originally 6-course) inspired in the Freiberger Lute, made by Günter Mark. Freiberger Lutes are a very good example of early Renaissance Lutes despite of their late construction (1574). A similar lute can be seen in the sculpture of Pythagoras by Jörg Syrlin "The Old" (1474) in the Müster (cathedral) of Ulm, or in the Angel Salutation in St. Lorenz Nürnberg by Veit Stoß (1518)