French Songs Research Articles

The Value of Using French Songs in a Class of French as a Foreign Language: Second Year Class at the French Department in Erbil.

The Value of Using French Songs in a Class of French as a Foreign Language: Second Year Class at the French Department in Erbil.

The Value of Using French Songs in a Class of French as a Foreign Language: Second Year Class at the French Department in Erbil.

The Value of Using French Songs in a Class of French as a Foreign Language: Second Year Class at the French Department in Erbil.

Die Musikalien des Hamburger Organisten Valentin Pralle († 1565)

Even though the manuscript Ms. Hans. III,4 of the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg has been missing since World War II, its descriptions by Johann Ludwig von Bouck and Hugo Leichsenring contribute valuable information about the music library of Valentin Pralle, organist at the Swedish court in 1542 and at St. Katharinen in Hamburg from 1542 until his death in 1565. The article identifies the intabulation sent in a letter by the organist Johan Kellner to Pralle in 1554 (one of the earliest manuscripts in “new” German organ tablature) as the five-part motet Respice in me et miserere mei deus by G. Domale, based either on the prints RISM 15511 or 155412. Furthermore, the antigraph of four Latin motets and ten French chansons, copied in partbooks by Pralle himself, can be identified as the Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones (RISM 15407). There was another set of partbooks with four hitherto unknown German songs for four and five voices of which at least the first (cited in a quodlibet by Melchior Franck first printed in RISM F 1651) is by Johann Stahel, of whom so far only one five-part secular song in the fifth volume of Georg Forster’s Frischen teutschen Liedlein has been known. The article furthermore discusses a fascicle with German and French songs with incipits of texts only, for which neither Bouk nor Leichsenring give any information concerning the notation. From a note by Otto Kade in his copy of Ludwig Senfl’s Wohl kumbt der Mai taken from RISM 153417, it is evident that Ms. Hans. III,4 contained monophonic versions of this and other songs of which some or at least their melodies are hitherto unknown.

Conductus, Sequence, Refrain

Latin conducti do not typically come to mind when considering the medieval practice of French refrain citation; intertextual refrains were conventionally interpolated into French songs, narratives, and the upper voices of motets. Yet three conducti copied in late thirteenth-century northern French manuscripts intervene in this traditional narrative by engaging compositionally with French refrains: Veni sancte spiritus spes in GB-Lbl Egerton 274 (known as LoB or Trouvère F), and Marie preconio and Superne matris gaudia in F-Pn lat. 15131 (the St. Victor Miscellany). Previously identified as contrafacts of French refrain songs, Veni sancte spiritus spes shares its melody with a widely cited French refrain, while Marie preconio and Superne matris gaudia are rubricated with French refrains and scribal cues that suggest a musical relationship with French refrains. However, the poems of these conducti exhibit significant relationships not with French refrains but with homonymous and widely sung liturgical sequences. These conducti are not simply contrafacts but reflect a compositional negotiation between variously borrowed and new elements, resulting in Latin songs implicated within citational networks of liturgical chant and French refrains. Significantly, the repeated refrain serves in each song as the site for intertextual and intermusical processes, with borrowed material from French refrains and Latin sequences shaping the music and poetry of the new refrain-form conducti. Considered together, these conducti shed light on understudied Latin contexts for practices of multilingual intertextuality and intermusicality in late thirteenth-century France.

Remembering North Africa in French popular music at the turn of the twenty-first century

At the turn of the twenty-first century, memory was a recurrent theme in French songs about North Africa. This painted the region as a place of the colonial past, diminishing its current relevance to France by occulting immigrant perspectives. In the early 2000s, ‘Adieu mon pays’, Enrico Macias’s 1962 song about a departure from Algeria upon its independence, continued to be the exemplar of the song about North Africa. However, songs from the 1990s by North African artists show different views on remembering the region. The dynamics of French and Arabic in songs by Rachid Taha and Khaled indicate that an underlying malaise with remembering North Africa can manifest in a disconnection between two perspectives rooted in two different languages, and Faudel’s 2006 song ‘Mon pays’ shows the limits of memory as a mode of engagement with the lands of origin for second-generation immigrants. Although we may not extrapolate historical claims from the surge of North African memories as a theme in French music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the context of the time can help us interpret lyrics about the region in song from this period.

Identificació de dues cançons franceses i el seu context literari al «Procés de Corona d’aur» (c. 1406) de Francesc de la Via

This paper explores the French references in Francesc de la Via’s narrative poem "Procés de Corona d’aur". The French songs mentioned in the poem are close to some rondeaux that were probably sung at the court of King Martin I of Aragon.

‘Learning This Way Is Like Piecing a Puzzle Together’: Bringing My Autoethnography as a Self-Directed Learner of French to a Conclusion

This is the fourth and final part of an autoethnography about how I tried to enrich my vocabulary and improve my listening skills through French language songs. I made a learning plan and followed the same Study Use Review Evaluate (SURE) learning cycle as my students in a self-directed English course at a university in Japan, over a period of six weeks. Throughout the project and in the course of writing it up, I made comparisons and identified connections between my learning and that of my students. In this installment, I first compare the difficulty levels of the vocabulary in the three songs I studied by finding the lexical frequency profile of each. Next, in revisiting my trouble with understanding spoken French while in France, I discuss how cultural awareness, in addition to linguistic knowledge, is necessary for intercultural communication. After that, I briefly explore empathy as a factor in advising students, and particularly how learning in the same way as them (as in this project) can assist a teacher/advisor in better understanding and helping their students/advisees. Finally, I discuss the writing process as a method of inquiry. I feel that writing this autoethnography has transformed me into a better learner, teacher/advisor, writer, and researcher, and in this way, I hope to help others benefit from this method too.

Japanski glasovi u časopisu Zenit - Daigaku Horigući

This paper analyses the essay entitled "The Word as a Principle" by Yvan Goll (1891-1950), published in Zenit (Issue 9, November 1921), which shows the non European tendency of Avant-garde poetics. In his text, Goll emphasises the need to create a new form of poetry quoting the verses of the Japanese poet Daigaku Horiguchi (1892-1981), one of the most important Japanese poets and translators of the last century. As the son of a distinguished diplomat, a rare bilingual poet among the Japanese at the time, he published poems in French and Japanese. After reviewing research on Zenit conducted in Japan so far, the first part of this paper determines the original text of the mentioned poem. In December 1921, Horiguchi published in Paris his first collection of Tankas in French. The foreword to it was written by the famous French poet Paul Fort (1872-1960). Goll, however, did not take it from there, but from the manuscript of his anthology Les Cinq Continents, which was published in Paris in 1922. The chosen song by Horiguchi is not traditional, but shows a new poetic spirit. Although it was written in five lines, which is reminiscent of the tanka form (5; 7; 5; 7; 7), the poet introduced a new topic: how the Japanese feel in a foreign country. In order to clarify the nature of Goll's connection with Horiguchi, a detailed description of Horiguchi's life is given, focusing on his stay abroad from 1911 to 1925. It can be seen from his biography that the meeting with the French painter Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) in Madrid in 1915 marked Horiguchi's poetic turn: his interest shifted from the poetics of symbolism to the Avant-garde, as the painter introduced him to Guillaume Apollinaire's (1880-1918) poetry. After staying in foreign countries (Mexico, Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Brazil and Romania), when he returned to Japan in 1925, Horiguchi published the Crowd under the Moon anthology, which contains translations of French songs from Parnassians to Avant-garde poets, including Yvan Goll. Although no traces of their connection can be established, it is clear that they both felt poetically related and close, with mutual respect. Finally, Goll's understanding of Japanese poetry in the context of Avant-garde poetics is considered in comparison with Miloš Crnjanski's essay entitled "For Free Verse" (1922), which also mentions Japanese poetry. While Goll emphasises the simplicity and conciseness of Japanese poetry, Crnjanski points to the improvisation as its significant feature. While Goll is searching for new poetry that is in line with living fast in the high-tech society, Crnjanski sees the everlasting connection of man with nature, which Japanese poetry is all about.

‘Trusting the Process’: Part Three of My Autoethnography as a Self-Directed Learner of French

This is the third part of an autoethnography about trying to enrich my vocabulary and improve my listening skills as a self-directed learner through French language songs. I followed the same Study Use Review Evaluate (SURE) learning cycle as my students in a self-directed English class at a university in Japan, and my work occurred at the same time as theirs, over a period of six weeks. Throughout the project and in the course of writing it up, I have been making comparisons and identifying connections between my learning and that of my students. This installment covers the final three weeks of the project. First, in continuing my language learning history, I discuss authentic language and the discrepancies between my classroom language learning and real-life experiences, especially with regard to understanding spoken language while in France. Next, the paper details how I evaluated my learning both during the project and months after it finished. After that, I describe my longtime interest in accents and dialects and how I chose my third song partly to study Nouchi, a French-based dialect spoken in Ivory Coast. The paper concludes with a description of how I felt my goals shifting at different points in the project and reasons I considered changing my focus from listening to reading. I also describe a way I have been able to continue practicing reading French on a daily basis and how students can benefit from this method too.

‘Things Will Look Up Because They Always Do’: The Continuation of My Autoethnography as a Self-Directed Learner of French

This is the second part of an autoethnography about trying to enrich my vocabulary and improve my listening skills as a self-directed learner through French language songs. I followed the same Study Use Review Evaluate (SURE) learning cycle as my students in a self-access English class, and my work occurred at the same time as theirs, over a period of six weeks. Throughout the project and in the course of writing it up, I was making comparisons and identifying connections between my learning and that of my students. This installment covers the second and third weeks of the project, and part of the fourth. First, it discusses vocabulary, describes how I adjusted a strategy, ways I enlisted help from native French speakers, and a problem that arose with using new words (the second step of SURE). Next, it details how I reviewed grammar through Duolingo, a language learning app, and the unexpected benefits I derived from using this app. Finally, this paper examines fluctuations in motivation and affect, which many learners experience at some point, and this initially led to anxiety and self-doubts about my purpose in conducting this project. Stepping into the learner’s experience was valuable, however, in helping me to rediscover intrinsic motivation and regain my self-confidence as I headed into the final weeks of the project.

‘A Puzzle that Needs to be Fitted Together’: The Beginning of My Autoethnographic Journey of Learning French Through Music

This is the first of several installments of an autoethnography about my experiences as a self-directed learner studying French over a six-week period. My studies paralleled work that students were completing in an English language course at a Japanese university and occurred simultaneously with theirs. I set a learning goal and focused on vocabulary and listening skills in order to better understand French language songs. In doing so, I not only revisited past knowledge of French, but also examined my learning techniques and developed strategies as I made weekly study plans. In this installment, I will give an overview of the project, and tell how I arrived at it and why I chose to study French. I will also describe my language learning history, especially with regard to French and Japanese. Data consisted of observation notes, weekly reflections, song lyrics with my vocabulary translations, and a log of days/time spent studying. This installment goes through the first week of the project, when I chose a song to study, a strategy to try, resources to use, and then did those things. At the onset, I doubted whether I could be successful, but was also excited and motivated to begin a new endeavor.

Аутентичные французские песни как средство развития языковой компетенции студентов-нефилологов

In pedagogy songs have long been treated as an effective tool to raise motivation and memory. The article highlights the options for working with authentic French songs in a language classroom to reveal their potential for forming and developing the linguistic competence. To achieve this goal the authors consider the set of songs correlating with the curriculum, offer a system of exercises and tasks to develop linguistic competence and discuss the results of the experimental study demonstrating the efficacy of using French songs for certain teaching purposes.

Comparative analysis of stylistic devices in the English and French songs of independent scene

Comparative analysis of stylistic devices in the English and French songs of independent scene

Chanteurs de rue, or street singers in early modern France

AbstractThe impression one tends to have about the profession of the street singer in early modern France is of one voice struggling to be heard amongst a cacophony of other ambulant sellers crying their goods for sale. This vision is encouraged by the centuries‐old genre of the ‘cris de Paris’, immortalised in verse as early as the thirteenth century. This paper outlines in greater detail the figure of the chanteur de rue in the early modern period, from eye‐witness accounts (more plentiful for the eighteenth century), from pictorial evidence, and from clues within the songs themselves. There is evidence to suggest that different types of songs were performed by different types of singers, with the singer of complaintes (execution songs) adopting a costume and demeanour that distinguished him from the singer of ‘profane songs’. However, French songs in the sixteenth century were often sold in cheaply printed recueils, songbooks on a surprisingly diverse range of topics. This paper therefore examines how a street singer might have performed and sold these often heterogenous texts, and how the authorities tried in vain to control and censor these potentially subversive singers of news.

L’adaptation de chanson dans l’album <i>Coeur vagabond</i> de Bïa. Une brise de Brésil

Perle Abbrugiati’s article explores Coeur vagabond/Coracao vagabundo , the fourth record by the French-Brazilian artist Bia, released in 2006. The bilingual album comprises an equal number of Brazilian-Portuguese adaptations from French songs and French adaptations from Brazilian songs. The aim of the present article is to identify the strategies applied in the translation of songs. To this end, the article’s author herself uses translation within the framework of a comparative approach, confronting Bia’s translations with her own literal translations (not suitable to be sung) of the original lyrics. The objective is not to trace ‘mistranslations’ but to point out in how many different and intricate ways a translation can be faithful while being creative, and in what way and to what degree the song translator may take the liberty of ‘re-semantisation’.

Signification de la nature dans les chansons françaises des pèlerins de Saint-Jacques: réalité, fiction et moralité

This paper focuses on nature as subject-matter of the French songs in the Jacobean route. It analyses the role and treatment of nature as determined by the type of composition in which it appears. Three different kind of songs have been established : en route (informative), narrative (entertaining) and moralizing (didactic). In the first category, nature forms part of a collective pilgrimage experience available for future devout travellers. In the second group, nature is a useful resource for the edifying distraction of the pilgrim. Finally, in the compositions that possess a moral aim, nature is a means to express certain notions of Christian life. As a conclusion, we have proved that nature is conceived of as the variable manifestation of the bond between the worship to Santiago and an experiential context including culture and literature that reaches toward the Modern Age but can be traced back at least to the Middle Ages.

Comprehension of specifics of lyricism in Ukrainian and French songs as a component of work with the students-vocalists of Popular Music and Jazz specialization

Comprehension of specifics of lyricism in Ukrainian and French songs as a component of work with the students-vocalists of Popular Music and Jazz specialization

« C’est pas par plaisir qu’ils voyagent ! » Chanson et migration – contextualisation, thématique et point de vue narratif

How can the rich panorama of French songs which scholars tend to identify as ‘songs of migration’ be characterized? The chanson politique, the chanson engagee, and the chanson de la migration – all three of them make statements about society but the latter is specific in its themes: It focuses on the individual and/or the collective experience of forced displacement and migration, which have been the lot of thousands and thousands of people in the past three decades. In the first part of this article, the history of French immigration is outlined in order to contextualise the 60 songs chosen for analysis. After briefly highlighting the complexity and plurimediality of the artistic form of the chanson, the second part concentrates on the themes addressed and on the narrative perspective; it ends with Louis Calvet who stated as early as 1976 that a chanson can be political for three reasons: the author’s intentionality, the topics dealt with, and the way in which the contemporary society ‘lives’ the respective songs.

Toi, moi… et les autres ? Musique populaire et migration dans le film musical <i>Toi, moi, les autres</i> d’Audrey Estrougo (2011)

In my article, I analyse the relationship between famous French songs and migration in the French film musical Toi, moi, les autres (Audrey Estrougo 2011), which mixes the codes of the fairy tale romcom with a story about undocumented migrants in contemporary Paris. I underscore that the use of these songs – very few of the musical arrangements are sung by figures of sans-papiers – is pernicious. They serve to highlight and to cement the love story of the two protagonists much more than to develop a real political discourse. I argue that the filmmaker has exploited the memorial – and sentimental – dimension of the French songs for the benefit of the romantic story but has failed to offer a critical discourse on the situation of the undocumented migrants, which had been one of the intentions of the film.

An Anthology of French and Francophone Singers from A To Z: "Singin' in French." ed. by Michaël Abecassis and Marcelline Block

Reviewed by: An Anthology of French and Francophone Singers from A To Z: "Singin' in French." ed. by Michaël Abecassis and Marcelline Block James P. Gilroy Abecassis, Michaël, and Marcelline Block, eds. An Anthology of French and Francophone Singers from A To Z: "Singin' in French." Cambridge Scholars, 2018. ISBN 978-1-5275-0354-0. Pp. 674. This book is a biographical encyclopedia of over two hundred singers, presented in alphabetical order, from France and other French-speaking countries. The entries were written by several contributors from around the globe. Each entry is accompanied by a caricature of the singer by artists Jenny Batlay and Igor Bratusek. One is impressed by both the geographical and historical range of the articles. The singers presented include well-known singers from the past, like Maurice Chevalier and Édith Piaf, as well as lesser-known contemporary performers. It is revealing of France's well-deserved reputation as a terre d'accueil that so many "French" singers came from, or were children of, parents who came from other lands as diverse as northern and sub-Saharan Africa, Armenia, and Russia. Sadly, two of the artists, Johnny Hallyday and France Gall, have passed away since the printing of the book. Because this work embraces so many different people, it might be expedient to point out some common trends. First, many of these singers wrote their own songs as well as writing for other performers. They also evolved their composing and performing styles over the years to keep up with new popular trends. Several had a difficult time attracting the public's interest at first, and only gained celebrity after years of dogged persistence. It is also noteworthy how many of them also had successful careers as actors in films, both in France and in Hollywood. These include Maurice Chevalier, Charles Aznavour, Juliette Greco, and Yves Montand. Most of these singers were greatly influenced by current movements in British and American music. Many of their hits were adaptations of American or English songs. Some French singers even adopted Anglo-sounding stage names. The popularity of the Beatles in the 1960s, with their"Yeah, yeah, yeah!"refrain led to the "yé-yé" movement in France. Of course, some French songs became equally popular in the United States when translated into English, for example, Claude François's 1967 "Comme d'habitude," which was adapted by Paul Anka into the famous "My Way." Another recurring feature of these singers is their espousal of social causes, including liberal pleas for human rights and opposition to war, as well as humanitarian efforts to aid the poor and suffering in areas of famine and persecution. Jacques Brel's [End Page 240] chansons engagées are one striking example. Jean-Jacques Goldman also reminded the French public of its collaboration with the Nazis during the Vichy period, while Charles Aznavour did not let people forget about the Armenian genocide. In addition to performing benefit concerts, these singers also weave their political message into the lyrics of their songs. It is comforting to note how many of these artists gained enormous recognition and fortune, often playing to packed houses at the Olympia and other venues. It is also a credit to the French State that several were recipients of official accolades on behalf of the nation, such as the Légion d'honneur. James P. Gilroy University of Denver Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French