''Air à boire'' is a French term which was used between the mid-17th and mid-18th centuries for a "

drinking song A drinking song is a song that is sung before or during Alcoholic beverage, alcohol consumption. Most drinking songs are Folk music, folk songs or commercium songs, and may be varied from person to person and region to region, in both the lyri ...

". These were generally

strophic Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, ...

, syllabic

song A song is a musical composition performed by the human voice. The voice often carries the melody (a series of distinct and fixed pitches) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs have a structure, such as the common ABA form, and are usu ...

s to light texts. Its predecessor was '' chanson pour boire'', the difference being mainly that ''chansons pour boire'' were for one voice with

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

accompaniment, whereas ''airs à boire'' are generally for more than one voice.Baron ''Airs à boire'' are generally contrasted with ''airs sérieux'', which typically had texts on more serious matters, such as "love,

pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...

scenes, and political

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

."Baron, Air à boire Most ''airs à boire'' occur in publications from

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, and are for one to three voices and lute accompaniment. In the 1690s ''airs à boire'' were so popular that new collections containing them were published every three months in Paris. In the period when the term was used, over 250 collections of songs with the title ''Airs sérieux et à boire'' were published. Composers who were prolific in the genre were

Marc-Antoine Charpentier Marc-Antoine Charpentier (; 1643 – 24 February 1704) was a French Baroque composer during the reign of Louis XIV. One of his most famous works is the main theme from the prelude of his ''Te Deum'' ''H.146, Marche en rondeau''. This theme is st ...

(38 compositions), André Campra,

François Couperin François Couperin (; 10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque music, Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as ''Couperin le Grand'' ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musi ...

, Jean-Fery Rebel, Henry Desmarest, Jean-Baptiste Drouart de Bousset, Michel Lambert, Etienne Moulinier, Sébastien Le Camus and

Sébastien de Brossard Sébastien de Brossard (; 12 September 165510 August 1730) was a French music theorist, composer and collector. Life Brossard was born in Dompierre, Orne. After studying philosophy and theology at Caen, he studied music and established himself ...

References

*John H. Baron. "Air à boire", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language '' Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and t ...

'', ed. L. Macy (accessed December 2, 2006)
grovemusic.com
(subscription access). *John H. Baron. "Chanson pour boire", ''

'', ed. L. Macy (accessed December 2, 2006)
grovemusic.com
(subscription access).

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Air A Boire 17th-century music genres 18th-century music genres Song forms French music history Baroque music