A (,
, french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any
lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular
polyphonic French songs of late
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
and
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
music.
[ ] The
genre
Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other for ...
had origins in the
monophonic
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
songs of
troubadour
A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairi ...
s and
trouvère
''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet ...
s, though the only polyphonic precedents were 16 works by
Adam de la Halle
Adam de la Halle (1245–50 – 1285–8/after 1306) was a French poet-composer '' trouvère''. Among the few medieval composers to write both monophonic and polyphonic music, in this respect he has been considered both a conservative and progr ...
and one by
Jehan de Lescurel
Jehan de Lescurel (; also Jehannot de l'Escurel) was a composer-poet of late medieval music. Jehan's extensive surviving ''oeuvre'' is an important and rare examples of the ''formes fixes'' before the time of Guillaume de Machaut; it consists of ...
. Not until the ''
ars nova'' composer
Guillaume de Machaut did any composer write a significant number of polyphonic chansons.
A broad term, the word "chanson" literally means "song" in French and can thus less commonly refers to a variety of (usually
secular
Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...
) French genres throughout history. This includes the songs of
chansonnier, ''
chanson de geste
The ''chanson de geste'' (, from Latin 'deeds, actions accomplished') is a medieval narrative, a type of epic poem that appears at the dawn of French literature. The earliest known poems of this genre date from the late 11th and early 12th c ...
'' and
Grand chant
The ''grand chant'' (''courtois'') or, in modern French, (''grande'') ''chanson courtoise'' or ''chanson d'amour'', was a genre of Old French lyric poetry devised by the trouvères. It was adopted from the Occitan '' canso'' of the troubadours, b ...
; court songs of the late Renaissance and early
Baroque music periods, ''
air de cour
The ''air de cour'' was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. From approximately 1610 to 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, this was the predominant ...
''; popular songs from the 17th to 19th century, ''
bergerette A bergerette, or shepherdess' air, is a form of early rustic French song.
The bergerette, developed by Burgundian composers, is a virelai with only one stanza. It is one of the "fixed forms" of early French song and related to the rondeau. Example ...
'', ''
brunette
Brown hair, also referred to as brunet (male) or brunette (female), is the second most common human hair color, after black hair. It varies from light brown to a medium dark hair. It is characterized by higher levels of the dark pigment eume ...
'', ''
chanson pour boire
''Chanson pour boire'' and ''chanson à boire'' are terms for French drinking songs, frequently coupled with ''chanson pour danser'' (or "song for dancing"). It was used in from about 1627–1670. It is different from the '' air à boire'' primari ...
'', ''
pastourelle'', and
vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
;
art song of the
romantic era, ''
mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German ''Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song.
The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melod ...
''; and folk music, '. Since the 1990s, the term may be used for
Nouvelle Chanson, a French song that often contains poetic or political content.
High medieval precedents
''Chanson de geste''
The earliest ''chansons'' were the
epic poem
An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants.
...
s performed to simple
monophonic
Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...
melodies by a professional class of ''
jongleur
A minstrel was an entertainer, initially in medieval Europe. It originally described any type of entertainer such as a musician, juggler, acrobat, singer or fool; later, from the sixteenth century, it came to mean a specialist entertainer who ...
s'' or ''
ménestrels''. These usually recounted the famous deeds (''geste'') of past heroes, legendary and semi-historical. The ''
Song of Roland'' is the most famous of these, but in general the ''chansons de geste'' are studied as literature since very little of their music survives.
''Chanson courtoise''
The ''chanson courtoise'' or ''grand chant'' was an early form of monophonic ''chanson'', the chief lyric poetic genre of the
trouvère
''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French ('' langue d'oïl'') form of the '' langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet ...
s. It was an adaptation to
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
of the
Occitan ''
canso''. It was practised in the 12th and 13th centuries. Thematically, as its name implies, it was a song of
courtly love, written usually by a man to his noble lover. Some later ''chansons'' were polyphonic and some had
refrains and were called ''chansons avec des refrains''.
Late medieval and early Renaissance
''Formes fixes''
In its typical specialized usage, the word ''chanson'' refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early ''chansons'' tended to be in one of the ''
formes fixes
The ''formes fixes'' (; singular: ''forme fixe'', "fixed form") are the three 14th- and 15th-century French poetic forms: the ''ballade'', '' rondeau'', and ''virelai''. Each was also a musical form, generally a ''chanson'', and all consisted of ...
''—
ballade
Ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often put to music, or a type of sentimental love song in modern popular music.
Ballad or Ballade may also refer to:
Music Genres and forms
* Ballade (classical music), a musical setting of a literary ballad ...
,
rondeau or
virelai
A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three ''formes fixes'' (the others were the ballade
Ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often put to music, or a type of sentimental love song in ...
(formerly the ''chanson baladée'')—though some composers later set popular poetry in a variety of forms. The earliest chansons were for two, three or four voices, with first three becoming the norm, expanding to four voices by the 16th century. Sometimes, the singers were accompanied by
instruments.
The first important composer of ''chansons'' was
Guillaume de Machaut, who composed three-voice works in the ''formes fixes'' during the 14th century.
Burgundian ''chanson''
Two composers from
Burgundy,
Guillaume Du Fay
Guillaume Du Fay ( , ; also Dufay, Du Fayt; 5 August 1397(?) – 27 November 1474) was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. Considered the leading European composer of his time, his music was widely performed and repr ...
and
Gilles Binchois
Gilles de Bins dit Binchois (also Binchoys; – 20 September 1460) was a Franco-Flemish composer of early Renaissance music. A central figure of the Burgundian School, Binchois and his colleague Guillaume Du Fay were deeply influenced by the ...
, who wrote so-called Burgundian ''chansons'', dominated the subsequent generation of chanson composers (). Their chansons, while somewhat simple in style, are also generally in three voices with a structural tenor. These works are typically still 3 voices, with an active upper voice (discantus) pitched above two lower voices (tenor and altus) usually sharing the same range. Musicologist
David Fallows
David Fallows (born 20 December 1945) is an English musicologist specializing in music of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, as well as the performance practice of music. He is a leader in fifteenth-century music studies, particularly s ...
includes the Burgundian repertoire in ''A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs 1415–1480.''
Mid-late Renaissance ''chanson''
Later 15th- and early 16th-century figures in the genre included
Johannes Ockeghem
Johannes Ockeghem ( – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with hi ...
and
Josquin des Prez, whose works cease to be constrained by ''formes fixes'' and begin to feature a pervading imitation (all voices sharing material and moving at similar speeds), similar to that found in contemporary
motets and liturgical music. The first book of music printed from movable type was ''
Harmonice Musices Odhecaton
The ''Harmonice Musices Odhecaton'' (One Hundred Songs of Harmonic Music, also known simply as the ''Odhecaton'') is an anthology of polyphonic secular songs published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1501 in Venice. It is the first book of polyphonic mu ...
'', a collection of ninety-six chansons by many composers, published in Venice in 1501 by
Ottaviano Petrucci
Ottaviano Petrucci (born in Fossombrone on 18 June 1466 – died on 7 May 1539 in Venice) was an Italian printer. His '' Harmonice Musices Odhecaton'', a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet ...
.
Parisian ''chanson''
Beginning in the late 1520s through mid-century,
Claudin de Sermisy Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1490 – 13 October 1562) was a French composer of the Renaissance music, Renaissance.Isabelle Cazeaux, "Claudin d Sermisy", "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. (London, Macmillan ...
,
Pierre Certon,
Clément Janequin
Clément Janequin (c. 1485 – 1558) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous composers of popular chansons of the entire Renaissance, and along with Claudin de Sermisy, was hugely influential in the development o ...
, and
Philippe Verdelot
Philippe Verdelot (1480 to 1485–1530 to 1540) was a French composer of the Renaissance, who spent most of his life in Italy. He is commonly considered to be the father of the Italian madrigal, and certainly was one of its earliest and most prol ...
were composers of so-called Parisian ''chansons'', which also abandoned the ''formes fixes'', often featured four voices, and were in a simpler, more
homophonic
In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ...
style. This genre sometimes featured music that was meant to be evocative of certain imagery such as birds or the marketplace. Many of these Parisian works were published by
Pierre Attaingnant. Composers of their generation, as well as later composers, such as
Orlando de Lassus, were influenced by the Italian
madrigal
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...
.
Modern ''chanson''
French solo song developed in the late 16th century, probably from the aforementioned Parisian works. During the 17th century, the ''
air de cour
The ''air de cour'' was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650. From approximately 1610 to 1635, during the reign of Louis XIII, this was the predominant ...
'', ''
chanson pour boire
''Chanson pour boire'' and ''chanson à boire'' are terms for French drinking songs, frequently coupled with ''chanson pour danser'' (or "song for dancing"). It was used in from about 1627–1670. It is different from the '' air à boire'' primari ...
'' and other like genres, generally accompanied by lute or keyboard, flourished, with contributions by such composers as
Antoine Boesset,
Denis Gaultier,
Michel Lambert Michel Lambert (1610 – 29 June 1696) was a French singing master, theorbist and composer.
Career
Lambert was born at Champigny-sur-Veude, France. He received his musical education as an altar boy at the Chapel of Gaston d'Orléans, a brother of ...
and
Michel-Richard de Lalande. This still affects today's Chanson as many French musicians still follow this instrument pattern of Harp and Keyboard.
During the 18th century, vocal music in France was dominated by
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...
, but solo song underwent a renaissance in the 19th century, first with
salon melodies
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinati ...
and then by mid-century with highly sophisticated works influenced by the German
Lieder, which had been introduced into the country.
Louis Niedermeyer, under the particular spell of
Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
, was a pivotal figure in this movement, followed by
Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27 January 182322 April 1892) was a French composer. His most celebrated piece is the '' Symphonie espagnole'', a five-movement concerto for violin and orchestra, which remains a popular work in the standard repe ...
,
Felicien David and many others.
Another offshoot of ''chanson'', called ''
chanson réaliste'' (realist song), was a popular musical genre in France, primarily from the 1880s until the end of World War II.
[Sweeney, Regina M. (2001). ''Singing Our Way to Victory: French Cultural Politics and Music During the Great War'', Wesleyan University Press. p. 23. .][Fagot, Sylvain & Uzel, Jean-Philippe (2006). ''Énonciation artistique et socialité: actes du colloque international de Montréal des 3 et 4 mars 2005'', L'Harmattan. pp. 200–203. . (French text)] Born of the ''
cafés-concerts'' and
cabarets
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or ...
of the
Montmartre
Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...
district of
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
and influenced by literary realism and the naturalist movements in literature and theatre, ''chanson réaliste'' was a musical style which was mainly performed by women and dealt with the lives of Paris's poor and working class.
[Wilson, Elizabeth (1992). ''The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women'', University of California Press. p. 62. ][Conway, Kelly (2004). ''Chanteuse in the City: The Realist Singer in French Film''. University of California Press. p. 6.
] Among the better-known performers of the genre are Damia, Fréhel
Fréhel (; born Marguerite Boulc'h; 13 July 1891 – 3 February 1951) was a French singer and actress.
Biography
Born in Paris to a poor and dysfunctional Breton family, Marguerite Boulc'h was a child left to a life on the streets in the sord ...
, and Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (, , ; born Édith Giovanna Gassion, ; December 19, 1915– October 10, 1963) was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Pia ...
.
Later 19th-century composers of French art songs, known as mélodie A ''mélodie'' () is a form of French art song, arising in the mid-19th century. It is comparable to the German ''Lied''. A ''chanson'', by contrast, is a folk or popular French song.
The literal meaning of the word in the French language is "melod ...
and not chanson, included Ernest Chausson
Amédée-Ernest Chausson (; 20 January 1855 – 10 June 1899) was a French Romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.
Life
Born in Paris into an affluent bourgeois family, Chausson was the sole surviving child of ...
, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, and Claude Debussy, while many 20th-century and current French composers have continued this strong tradition.
Revival
In the 20th century, French composers revived the genre. Claude Debussy composed Trois Chansons for choir a capella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Rena ...
, completed in 1908. Maurice Ravel wrote '' Trois Chansons'' for choir a cappella after the outbreak of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
as a return to French tradition, published in 1916.
''Nouvelle chanson''
In France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
today ''chanson'' or ''chanson française'' is distinguished from the rest of French "pop" music by following the rhythms of French language, rather than those of English, and a higher standard for lyrics.
Museum
In La Planche
La Planche (; br, Ar Plank) is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.
It is situated at 25 km (16 miles) south of Nantes. The 1973 Nantes mid-air collision took place above La Planche ...
, Loire-Atlantique, the Musée de la chanson française was established in 1992. The museum has the goal to remember the artists that have established the heritage of the ''chanson''.[Danièle Clermontel and Jean-Claude Clermontel, Chronologie scientifique, technologique et économique de la France]]
page 321
See also
* Canzone
Literally "song" in Italian, a ''canzone'' (, plural: ''canzoni''; cognate with English ''to chant'') is an Italian or Provençal song or ballad. It is also used to describe a type of lyric which resembles a madrigal. Sometimes a composition w ...
* Russian chanson
Russian chanson ( rus, русский шансон, r=russkiy shanson}; from French "chanson") is a neologism for a musical genre covering a range of Russian songs, including city romance songs, author song performed by singer-songwriters, an ...
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
Further reading
*Dobbins, Frank
"Chanson."
In ''The Oxford Companion to Music'', edited by Alison Latham. ''Oxford Music Online''.
*Michail Scherbakov. Russian Сhanson
*
External links
French historical chanson panorama (French education minister)
{{Authority control
French music
Medieval music genres
16th-century music genres
17th-century music genres
18th-century music genres
19th-century music genres
20th-century music genres
21st-century music genres
Renaissance music
Song forms
Songs in classical music