French art song word-for-word translation

Author: Zhao Qingrun, Li Weibo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: Starting from the 18th century, composers set great poets to music, with the music accompanied by poetry, human voice, and instrumental music (usually piano). The characteristics of such works are: the music serves the poetry, and the overall purpose of the song is to highlight the beauty of the poem. Gradually, the form of the music evolved from sectional to through-composed lieder, which people called art songs. To sing art songs well, like singing opera arias, requires understanding the content of the lyrics. This textbook provides interpretations for 109 French art songs, hoping to offer some assistance to singers. There is one point that needs to be noted: some French composers wrote different melodies for the same poem by the same poet, but they were all selected and performed by singers. For different musical versions of the same poem, this book does not repeat translations, but only adds notes after the first appearance of the lyrics and under subsequent titles for easy reference by readers. These 109 songs are arranged in alphabetical order by the composers' names.