Steve Schwartz asks me:

>By the way, what's the difference between a "chanson" and a "melodie?" Is
>there any?

You're stressing there one important problem of vocabulary in the French
musicology regarding the vocal repertoire.  Most of French musicians
consider that the word "chanson" has a popular sense: we use it to denote
a "chanson populaire" (popular song), of oral transmission, and we use it
to denote a "chanson de variete" too, that's to say a song of Edith Piaf
for example, the songs we listen each day on the radio.  (When the text of
the song has a special interest, supposed to be the most important thing,
as with Edith Piaf, we call it "chanson a texte" too)

On the contrary, the "melodie" pertains to "art song" (as we say in
english), supposed to be the equivalent of the german "lied", and
represents important composers such as Faure, Duparc, Chausson, Debussy,
Poulenc...  This very strict term denotes art songs, with voice/piano (or
voice/orchestra in some cases), composed on French poems, from the second
half of the XIXth century to the beginning of the second WW
approximatively.

Moreover, a "melodie" is supposed to have a special musical quality, to try
to find a close relationship between text and music, otherwise we call it
"romance" or "chanson", the word "romance" having a particular pejorative
sense.  So there is quite a prestigious sense for the word "melodie", which
isn't always justified because almost all art songs of the end of the XIXth
were entitled "melodie" by publishers.

Stephane Escoubet. (Toulouse / France)
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