Chanson

What it means

Chanson is the French word for song and in music history designates two quite different things. On the one hand, the polyphonic song genre of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which, alongside the madrigal, is the most important secular vocal form of its time; on the other, the French song of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with accompaniment, in which the text is in the foreground. The two meanings must be kept apart even though they bear the same name.

Musical use

The Renaissance chanson is set in several parts, often for three to five voices, and ranges from artfully imitative settings to catchy, chordal pieces with distinct declamation. Some chansons depict scenes with musical means, such as birdsong or the din of battle. The later chanson lives from the combination of text, delivery, and the personality of the performer; the music serves the language, and the form is usually strophic with a refrain. Common to both forms is the close tie to the French language and its stress patterns.

Performance practice

First settle which genre is meant, because scoring and manner of performance are completely different. With the Renaissance chanson, watch for transparency of the voices, shared pronunciation, and a declamation that follows the French word accent. With the later chanson, intelligibility of the text comes first; sing close to speech, with moderate vibrato and careful phrasing. Read the text aloud before you sing, and get a translation. Choose a pitch at which the text stays effortlessly intelligible.

Bear in mind that the French language has little word accent but distinct line accents; whoever stresses it like German chops up the line. Work on the nasal vowels and on the linking between the words, because both carry the sound of the language. With polyphonic Renaissance chansons, it is worth checking whether text underlay comes from the editor; it is often interpretation and not transmission. In the later chanson, the shaping of the interludes is also part of the interpretation.

Also settle the scoring, since polyphonic chansons can be performed with one voice to a part as well as chorally.