Le Français en chantant: septièmes rencontres de Liré ed. by Françoise Argod-Dutard (review)

This rich collection of essays draws together contributions by established academics from literature, linguistics, and music departments alongside practitioners, ministers, lawyers, and pedagogues. Covering a wide historical span — from medieval French troubadour songs and Renaissance airs, to nineteenth- and twentieth-century chansons and twenty-first-century pop songs — the main impetus of the book is to examine the issues arising from the close-knit relationship between language and music. For example, an 'histoire cantologique' is offered by Stéphane Hirschi, examining 'la chanson dans sa globalité (texte, musique et interprétation)' (p. 77) through a compelling whistle-stop tour of songs from the late Renaissance through to the nineteenth century, showing this to be a period that favours a system of 'timbres' that allows for interchangeable texts to be sung to an existing set of simple tunes. Exploring the significance of straightforward musical forms (which are easily memorizable and/or replicable), other chapters examine the social importance of the French chanson and its pivotal role in language-acquisition by way of imitation and replication of sounds (via, for example, videos used in the classroom). Children's songs come under close scrutiny with a notable piece on 'Au clair de la lune' by Christian Robin, as do regional songs such as the Breton gwerz (Gaid Evenou). More specialist technical contributions on versification sit alongside the analyses of different types of song form, including Benoît de Cornulier's examination of Brassens in which he highlights the problems resulting from 'l'absence d'ouvrages traitant, sans les confondre, de la versification littéraire et de la "versification" des paroles des chants' (p. 220; original emphasis). Negotiating the divide between high art and popular song, Brigitte Buffard-Moret's chapter on nineteenth-century popular song forms is a stand-out piece offering a wealth of supporting evidence and carefully nuanced analysis. The economic importance of French chanson is not overlooked, particularly the nature of chanson as an international export. Jean-Claude Amboise, a lawyer for Avenir de la langue française, presents a perspective packed with statistics on recent international sales of French songs, asserting that 'la chanson française à l'étranger apparaît comme un puissant instrument d'influence' (p. 360). If there is one criticism to be levelled at the collection, it is that there is a tendency to assert the gap between speaking and singing, rather than considering them to be part of the same spectrum of vocal production. While the complexity of high-art song or mélodie could have been granted more space, what this book offers its readers is an accessible but analytically rich examination of the questions that we all like to ask: 'Why do words get distorted when we sing?'; 'Why do songs stick in our heads?'; 'Why does French chanson make such a good, and distinctive, export?'. While the answers to these questions may not yet be definitive, the contributions in this book help the reader to develop a more informed set of responses.