Folk Songs of the Auvergne

Passo pel prat - Go through the meadows

Baïléro - Shepherd’s song

Malurous qu’o uno fenno - Unfortunate is he who has a wife

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. Situated at the heart of the Massif Central in the middle of the southern half of France, it is a mountainous country where life is traditionally hard and which, because of its backward rural economy, remained largely unspoiled until well into the twentieth century. Joseph Canteloube, who was born in Annonay in the neighbouring region of the Rhône Valley, started collecting folk songs in the Auvergne in 1895, when the folk culture and the language of the region (nearer to Catalan than standard French) were still more or less intact. By 1955 he had published thirty Chants d’Auvergne, all in his own sophisticated arrangements and all far more successful than any of his own original works.

Canteloube’s main source of folk song was the shepherd community who, left to themselves in the mountains for months on end, had plenty of time to develop the art of singing of their own experience to melodies based on the traditional modes of the region. There are lullabies, comic dialogues, work songs and, of course, love songs. Passo pel prat is a characteristic example of the last kind, its two tenderly expressive verses introduced and concluded by a refrain of pure vocal melody. Baïlèro, the earliest and much the most popular of Canteloube’s folk song arrangements is both an authentic evocation of shepherds calling to each other across the river and a rhapsody to the countryside round Cantal where the song originated. Romantic though the Auvergne shepherds and shepherdesses were, however, they also had a healthy and, as Malurous qu’o uno fenno clearly demonstrates, even cynical sense of humour. Between the two verses Canteloube takes the opportunity to introduce a short but delightful pastiche of the instrumental music of the region.

from Book 2:

L'Antouèno

Pastourelle

from Book 1:

L’aïo dè rotso

Baïlèro

from Book 3:

Passo pel prat

Malurous qu'o uno fenno

Brezairola

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. Situated at the heart of the Massif Central in the middle of the southern half of France, it is a generally mountainous country where life is traditionally hard and which, because of its backward rural economy, remained largely unspoiled until well into the twentieth century. Joseph Canteloube, who was born in Annonay in the neighbouring Rhône Valley, started collecting folk songs in the Auvergne in 1895, 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 twenty-two songs, all in his own sophisticated arrangements for the concert hall - were first performed between 1925 and 1932 and proved far more popular than any of his original compositions. A fifth book, published in 1955, was less successful.

Canteloube’s main source of folk song was the shepherds who, left to themselves in the mountains for months on end, had plenty of time to develop the art of singing to themselves and to each other in the traditional melodic modes of the region. There are love songs, work songs, joke songs, lullabies, amorous and comic dialogues. L’Antouèno is an example of peasant humour expressed, in spite of the implications of Canteloube’s jovial woodwind introduction, in a characteristically sustained melodic line inflected and intoned so as to pass from one Auvergne hillside to another. Pastourelle is sung by a shepherd boy and a shepherd girl on opposite sides of a river, the bantering exchange between them carried on a similarly sustained line but in a more

romantic orchestral setting this time.

A speciality of the region is the bourrée d’Auvergne, a dance which in this peasant context is usually associated with flirtatious words and which Canteloube enjoyed presenting in rudely rustic woodwind colours. L’aïo dè rotso is a particularly witty bourrée settings. In marked contrast, Baïlèro, the earliest and much the most popular of his folk song arrangements, while melodically true to its source in Cantal, is not only an evocation of shepherds calling to each other across the river but also an atmospherically orchestrated rhapsody to the countryside where it originated.

Passo pel prat is a somewhat solemnly orchestrated but otherwise characteristic example of a cross-country love song, its two expressive verses introduced and concluded by a vocal refrain as natural and as melodious as bird song. Romantic though the Auvergne peasants were, however, they also had a healthy and, as Malurous qu’o uno fenno clearly demonstrates, even cynical sense of humour. Between the two verses Canteloube takes the opportunity to introduce a short but delightful pastiche of the instrumental music of the region. His affection for the Auvergne and its music is nowhere more evident, however, than in his tenderly scored, gently rocking accompaniment to the traditional lullaby Brezairola.