Chantez, chantez jeune inspirée (c1900)

Among Hugo’s foreign composers Maude Valérie White is not the most celebrated. She should, however, be spared the oblivion to which so many of the song composers among her English contemporaries, particularly the women among them, have long been consigned. Her Chantez, chantez, jeune fille inspirée is not a drawing-room ballad but a stylish French song with a true melodic élan and an engaging piano ritornello anticipating and echoing the first phrase of the vocal line. Her unpretentious treatment of the text should be effective too in offsetting Liszt’s application of the full romantic apparatus in the three songs that follow.