François Le Fort loved literature and music. He was a regular customer at Plantin's bookshop on the Antwerp Vrijdagmarkt. During the 1580s, for example, Bonaventura Vulcanius, Dean of the Calvinist college in Antwerp, purchased for Le Fort two quadrilingual dictionaries (the Dictionaria tetraglot), and two Grammatica. In 1581 Le Fort bought Lodovico Guicciardini's Historia; later he paid for a French translation of Justus Lipsius' Constantia. These purchases are written down in the account books or Journaux of the Plantin-Moretus firm.

Grateful for "la faveur et bonne affection" ("the favours and true affection") Le Fort always bestowed on him and aware of the fact "que vous [Le Fort] aymez la musique, & y prenez plaisir, estant en icelle bien excercité" ("you love music and enjoy it, being well-practised"), De Castro offered him in 1576 his book of Ronsard chansons.

Music fragment 2

"Petite nymphe folatre": chanson for eight voices from Chansons, odes et sonetz de Pierre Ronsard, Louvain-Antwerp, Phalèse-Bellère, 1576. The text of this chanson is taken from Ronsard's sonnet book Les Amours de Cassandre, (1552-3).

[ Listen to the Music Frangment ]

De Castro conceived "Petite nymphe folatre" as a lively rhythmical chanson for eight voices (a quite exceptional setting for a chanson). Choir groups in dialogue continuously exchange little flattering words. More than one third of the chanson is devoted to the musical elaboration of the last verse, a compositional 'strategy' inspired by the "mille baisers" ("thousand kisses") in the text. "Petite nymphe folatre" is best known in the version of the French composer Clément Janequin. Other versions were written by the Flemish polyphonists François Regnard and Alexander Utendal.