6 Chants d’Auvergne (1923–54)

Lou Boussu (Book 3)

La delaïssádo (Book 2)

Malurous qu'o uno fenno (Book 3)

Brezairola (Book 3)

Uno jionto pastouro (Book 5)

Although it has given few composers to the world – Emmanuel Chabrier is the only one of any significance – the Auvergne is a region rich in folk song. Joseph Canteloube, who was born in Annonay in the neighbouring Rhône Valley, became familiar with the folk music of the Auvergne when he was a boy, at a time when the language of the region (nearer to Catalan than standard French) and its folk culture were still more or less intact. The first four books of his Chants d’Auvergne – comprising 22 songs, all in his own sophisticated arrangements for the concert hall – were published between 1923 and 1940 and proved far more popular than any of his many original compositions. A fifth book (of 8 songs) published in 1955 was less successful.

Reflecting the thoughts and preoccupations of the Auvergne peasant community, the songs are by no means all of them expressions of romantic yearning from pretty shepherdess. Lou Boussu, which offers much scope for comic characterization to both the pianist and the singer, is just the opposite in fact. La delaïssado, on the other hand, is the lament of an abandoned shepherdess, the decorative inflections of the melodic line formed quite naturally by the weight of her grief. But if the cheerful sentiments of Malurous qu’o uno fenno are to believed, she is better off without him. There is nothing cynical about Brezairola which, one of two lullabies in the collection, is perhaps the most affectionate of all Canteloube’s folk-song settings. In Uno jionto pastouro from Book 5, another shepherdess’s lament, the composer in his 70s comes close to recapturing the freshness of his earlier arrangements.