Lecture:  A Bouquet of Chansons
By Audrey Wong


Good evening - and thank you for coming early for this lecture.  I love doing these, but I must confess - tonight I am feeling a bit self-conscious because I have to pronounce a lot of French names and I'm afraid French is not my forte.  So I apologize in advance.

Baroque Choral Guild has a 10-word description which we use in all our boilerplate - grant proposals, PR, the program that you have in your hand:  "dedicated to enriching Bay Area culture through performance and education."

We take the "education" part of our mission very seriously - and not only through our year-round Cantabile Children's Chorus and our Peninsula Choral Workshop summer program for high schoolers.  Every season, at this time, the Guild Chorus performs a concert of a cappella works especially chosen to enrich and enlighten us about our art form. And when I say enrich US I really mean "us" - you our audience community and ourselves, the singers.

As you might guess by your dense program, we have quite a few songs to sing to you tonight.  Since our music director Mitchell Covington will be saying some words about the pieces during the concert, I don't want to tell you too much about the music now.  I don't want to spoil his surprise or steal his thunder.  This lecture is going to be a mini history lesson to give you a broader
perspective.  What was going on in the world during the times in which the chanson blossomed?

Last fall I had the pleasure of attending my 30th college reunion. One afternoon a bunch of us dorm-mates were sitting around in my kitchen and discussing the different reunion activities.  One person described a session he had attended in which the lecturer tossed out this question:  "Who was the most influential person of the millennium?"  And my friend said that he had been very surprised by the answer.  So of course we all had to start guessing - Einstein ... Hitler ... Schweitzer.  I thought for a while, and said "Gutenberg." And I was right.  (Yesssss!)

Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press around 1455.  He did a lot more than just cure writer's cramp and eyestrain in young monks. Books on all subjects - religion, literature, history, science - became available ... and accessible ... and affordable.  Literacy spread, and so did knowledge.  Vernacular literature appeared ... Why?  Because it could reach an audience that was much wider than the ones who could read the old manuscripts.  Those manuscripts which, for the most part, were written in Latin.

Fifty years after the first printing presses were running, a commercial process for printing music was invented.  By the late 1520s the Parisian music publisher Pierre Attaingnant began to issue vast quantities of music written mostly by composers living
and working around Paris.  Now up until then, European sacred and
secular music was dominated by Franco-Flemish composers - famous
names such as Guillaume Dufay, Josquin des Prés.  Through Attaingnant's publishing house, a new style - markedly different from the Franco-Flemish composers - appeared.  The Parisian chanson evolved.

Ahh, Paris.  Paris at this time was an important musical center of Europe.  The French royal chapel employed some of the greatest musicians of the century.  This was during the reign of Francis I, or Fran­ois I, the popular king who ruled during a time when France was enjoying great prosperity.  The soil was bountiful, the peasants owned land, their lords protected them, craftsmen were skillful and commerce and trade flowed.

The population of France was about 16 million, compared to 3 million in England and 6 million in Spain.  Paris, with a population of 300,000, was the largest city in Europe, second only to Constantinople.

This was France's brief moment.  Their brand new king, the 21-year-old Fran­ois, attacked Italy and took Milan, himself fighting at the front. He became an instant idol.  Intoxicated by fame, he entered into the candidacy for the Imperial Crown.  (I didn't know that you could put yourself forward and "run" for emperor - did you?  Well, apparently one could.)  Fran­ois bribed the electors, but he lost because Charles, the king of Spain,
bribed more and became Emperor Charles V.  Fran­ois's throwing his chapeau into the ring was an unfortunate mistake because the result of the "election" kept Western Europe in turmoil for the
next 25 years.     

There was some shifting in the world's balance of power.  The Holy Roman Empire, under Emperor Charles V, was beginning its decline.  But the British Empire was not yet in ascent.  Imagine that this is your tv screen but instead of a weather map of California, this is a map of western Europe.  The land mass of France fractured Charles V's empire, which was spread over in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy. 

Martin Luther and his Protestant Reformation was stirring up a fuss in Germany.  Because of his anti-papal sentiments Emperor Charles's residence in Catholic Spain was shaky.  Pope Clement VII was chafing in Italy under the Charles' thumb.  Henry VIII in England was holding a grudge against Charles for opposing his divorce.  And let's not forget Suleinan the Turk besieging the Holy Roman Empire, the dreaded enemy from the east.

The hostility between Fran­ois and Emperor Charles never ceased.  In fact, that rivalry started when they were just little boys.  When he was only 12 years old Fran­ois was betrothed to his cousin Claude of France, the 7-year-old daughter of King Louis XII.  Claude had been previously betrothed to Charles, grandson of Spain's King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella; but the engagement was broken to avoid the union of France and Spain. (And we think our soap operas have convoluted plots!)

Fran­ois and Charles were at each other until just three years before Fran­ois's death.  Victories and defeats were exchanged in a shameful comedy of European rulers shifting allegiances.  They'd form allegiances, dissolve them, recombined - dictated by conveniece and short-term advantaage.  (Does this sound familiar?)  But - those conflicts did not take place on French soil.

His people loved Fran­ois from the time he was crowned.  Will Durant tells us:  "He was handsome, gay, courteous, brave; he met dangers like a Roland or an Amadis; when a wild boar, escaping from its cage, sought to frolic in his princely court, it was Fran­ois who, while others fled, faced the beast and slew it splendidly ... His pleasant voice, his cordiality and good temper, his vivacity and charm, his living synthesis of chivalry and the Renaissance, endeared him to his country, even to his court.  France rejoiced, placed high hopes in him ... the world seemed young again, so freshened with royal youth."  (This is what I call great PR.)

Durant continues, saying  "And Fran­ois was resolved to enjoy his throne."  

He was not a wise ruler - but because of the general "good" times he didn't need to be.  He had a powerful bureaucracy that administered his government.  He was also excessive in his extravagances, even after he retired in defeat.  The costs in peaceful times equalled if not exceeded the costs of war.  Fran­ois depleted his country's treasury.


When the 53-year-old Fran­ois was breathing his last, another Francis (the Duke of Guise) stood at the door and whispered to those in the next room "Le vieux gallant s'en va..."  (The old gallant is going.) Of his 32-year reign Durant says:  "France felt that it was too much; but when it had recovered from him it forgave him everything, because he had sinned gracefully, he had loved beauty, he had been incarnate France."

This was the soil from which the chanson sprung ... an
atmosphere of literacy, freedom, pleasure, beauty, style.  French
overtook Latin as the predominant European language.  The chansons became the most popular type of secular music sung or played by musicians - professionals and amateurs - in courts, theaters, homes, schools, even in the streets.

Chansons were sung through most of Europe.  They were written for solo or ensemble voices, and frequently arranged for instruments.  In the mid-1500s a group of poets, led by Pierre Ronsard, came into prominence and encouraged a union of poetry and music.  The chansons then developed to include word painting, contrasting rhythms and textures, intricate melodies and harmonies.

Chansons were written about any topic that described the varying conditions of human life and living.  Some are tender love songs, some are brazen lust songs.  Some are simple words set to simple tunes, some are incredible tongue-twisters or full of nonsense words or sound effects. Some are straight-forward statements, some are witty (and often naughty) plays on words.  Some are shimmeringly subtle - almost fragile, some are boldly satirical, downright raucous, or just plain silly.

Tonight we will sing chansons from two different periods - three centuries apart.  From 16th century Paris we perform works by Clément Janequin and Pierre Passereau, who were, shall we say, the big horses in publisher Attaingnant's stable; and the lesser-known Guillaume Costeley and Dominique Phinot.  We also perform works by Flemish Jean Richafort, Jacques Clément (otherwise known as Clemens non Papa, to distinguish himself from Pope Clement - as if anyone would confuse them), and Roland de Lassus (which is just the French way of saying Orlando di Lasso).  See if you can detect the differences between the Parisians their northern colleagues.

From the late 19th/early 20th century we perform chansons by Claude Debussy (settings of poems by Charles d'Orleans, who besides being Charles VII's uncle and Louis XII's father, was also Fran­ois I's grandfather) and Maurice Ravel, who was generally considered to be Debussy's foremost successor.  Both studied at the Paris Conservatory but their paths diverged.  Debussy followed the more conventional route, winning prizes and distinctions.  Ravel was a dropout - he did most of his composition as a member of a group of self-proclaimed "outcast" artists who convened regularly for mutual support and collaboration.  Both sets are called "Trois chansons" and both hearken back to the early Parisian chansons.

As a special treat we are pleased to spotlight two members of our chorus, Debra Blodgett and David Miller, who will perform two solo chansons by Claude Debussy.  And as a really special treat, our accompanist Jeana Ogren/Lino Rivera will play a selection by Francis Poulenc/Maurice Ravel.

Finally, from our own century - and still living -, we perform a set of five chansons by Morten Lauridsen, who is recognized as one of the major contemporary choral composers.  He is an Oregonian who currently serves as chair of the composition department at our music director's alma mater, the University of Southern California.  (You Stanford/Cal people ... I can assure you there is NOTHING in tonight's music that sounds like [SING USC fight song])  Like his 16th century counterparts, Lauridsen weds his music to poetry.

All the pieces we perform tonight are chansons, and you will find that the genre constitutes a huge palette of colors, textures, subjects, moods.  One thing they have in common is: they are ALL in French.  Now we've performed French music for you before ... Charpentier, Fauré, Duruflé, Mouton ... but with one exception, all those pieces were in Latin.  This is the first time we are doing an entire program in French.  We had diction coaching at every rehearsal, study guides, practice tapes, plus an all-day Saturday workshop - so for the chorus this was really an "educational" experience.

We hope you enjoy what we've spent the last 9 weeks preparing for you. Thank you for coming.  Merci beaucoup.

March 11 & 12, 2000






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