Chanson

Chanson, a French song. The term may mean simply any lyrical song with a French text, but, more specifically, it implies a song in one or several parts from the 14th century to the end of the 16th century.

The chansons of Guillaume de Machaut, the most distinguished French composer of the 14th century, might be in the old poetic formes fixes (ballade, virelai, and rondeau), with an intricately decorated melodic line accompanied by two slower-moving lower parts, which might be for instruments. The following generation of chanson composers are mainly from Burgundy, Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois being the most important. Their chansons too are usually cast in the formes fixes, but the three parts now move at approximately the same speed, forming a genuinely polyphonic texture, and there is occasional imitation. Their work was continued by Antoine Busnois and Johannes Ockeghem, who wrote longer musical phrases, introduced more popular tunes, sometimes employed consistent imitation, and in about a third of their works introduced a fourth voice.

With Josquin des Prez the great stylistic changes apparent elsewhere became evident in the chanson: the formes fixes largely disappeared, and the consistent use of imitation allowed the (normally four) voices to be equal in importance and yet independent. In the late 1520s a new generation of chanson composers emerged, particularly associated with Paris. The works of Claudin de Sermisy, Clément Janequin, and Pierre Certon are mainly chordal, although the inner parts might be more active, and the patterned repetition of the poems is followed by the music. Janequin is particularly important for his long descriptive chansons of which “The Battle of Marignan” is a good example.

In the late 1550s both Jacques Arcadelt and Orlando di Lasso became the leading chanson composers. But the style of Claude le Jeune began to show a concern to mirror the precise meaning as well as the form of the poetry (a stylistic feature known as “word-painting”, showing influence from the Italian madrigal). He also brilliantly adopted the ideas of Antoine de Baïf, in whose musique mesurée the composer set long and short syllables to long and short note lengths respectively. This was adapted to the simpler “vaudeville” or air de cour which might also be set for voice and lute.

The term has also been used in the late 19th century to refer to the Romantic art song with piano accompaniment (equivalent to the German Lieder) by composers such as Duparc, Fauré and, in the 20th century, Poulenc, and also in the 20th century to imply a lighter type of French song which might be for chorus and include orchestral accompaniment.