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) [log in to unmask]