Music by French and Flemish composers has the unique quality of meshing and braiding with the threads and fibers of my soul. This holds across the entire span of music history — from 12th to 20th century (I’m leaving out the 21st for now). Music from other lands speaks to me from narrower historical periods — English Renaissance, German Baroque, Russian Modernism.
This is an attempt to distill raw unfiltered impressions of French music, by someone who is not from France, a response purely to music itself. Good thing I don’t speak French (though I aim to change that), and, where present, the words don’t cloud my perception of music. I am generally of the opinion that, if need be, music should be sung to words one doesn’t understand or can only vaguely guess.
What is the je ne sais quoi of French music? If I may be so bold as to try to define it, — it often feels otherworldly, as if from the faerie realm, not weighed down by earthly sorrows, even though the lyrics can be very much about earthly sorrows. I think they sing and play Dufay and Ockeghem in Lothlórien.
I want to walk you through the centuries of French and Flemish music, to show you my jewelry box with the finest of gems I’ve collected over the years.
Note: links to individual pieces are from youtube (wherever possible), while album links are from Apple Music (and occasionally from youtube).
Medieval
Pérotin (c. 1160-1230) belongs to the Notre-Dame school of polyphony, a group of composers who worked at or near the cathedral in ~1160-1250 and who created the ars antiqua style.
Beata viscera. This recording is fittingly made in the cathedral, with a stunning reverb [1].
Sederunt principes: male choir, female choir. I imagine this is how elves communicate on a daily basis.
Recommended album:
Léonin and Pérotin: Sacred Music from Notre-Dame
Guillaume de Machaut (c. 1300-1377), poet and composer of the ars nova style (late medieval).
Le vray remède d’amour: Ballade ‘Je ne cuit pas’ | Le vray remède d’amour: Rondeau ‘Doulz viaire gracieus’ | Le vray remède d’amour: Rondeau ‘Puisqu’en oubli’ | Messe de Notre-Dame | Ma fin est mon commencement
Recommended albums:
De Machaut: Sacred and Secular Music | Machaut: Messe de Notre-Dame
Renaissance
Guillaume Dufay (1397-1474), a foremost and very prolific composer of his time. One of the first composers whose primary occupation was composition and recognized as such.
Vergene bella. Even though it is set to a sonnet by Petrarch, this is still a quintessentially French piece. This recording is by a countertenor Bernhard Landauer whose eerie metallic voice renders the piece otherworldly as can be.
Mon chier amy | Je me complains piteusement | Ma belle dame souveraine
Recommended albums:
Dufay: Chansons | Dufay: Le Prince d’amours | Dufay, G.: Choral Music | Dufay, G.: Vocal Music (youtube) | Dufay: The Masses of 1453 | The Dufay Spectacle
Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460), mostly known for his short mellifluous secular chansons, though he also wrote a lot of psalms, motets and mass movements.
Triste plaisir (by Ratas del viejo mundo) | Triste plaisir (piano arrangement by Jeremy Denk) | Amours mercy de trespout non pooir | Je vous salue | Lune très belle | Les très doulx yeux du viaire ma dame
Recommended albums:
Gilles Binchois: Chansons - Mon Souverain Desir (youtube) | Dufay & Binchois: Ballades, Rondeaux & Lamentation
Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410-1497) wrote some of the loveliest, sweetest chansons in existence. He also composed at least 14 masses, some of which are based on the melodic lines of the secular chansons he wrote earlier (Missa Fors seullement, for example).
D’un autre amer | Malheur me bat (lute) | Ma bouche rit | J’en ay dueil | Ma maistresse | Prenez sur moi | Autre Venus estes | Baisies moy don’t fort | Fors seulement l’attente (solo) | Fors seullement (polyphonic) | J’ai pris amours a ma devise | Je ne fays plus
Recommended albums:
Ockeghem: Chansons (youtube) | The Leuven Chansonnier Vol. 1 | Missa Fors seullement (youtube) | Ockeghem: Requiem, Missa Mi-Mi, Missa Prolatonium | Ockeghem: Missa ‘De plus en plus’; Chansons
Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521), a foremost composer of High Renaissance who perfected the art of Catholic mass. A recording of his Missa Pange Lingua by The Tallis Scholars is among my most listened recordings ever.
Missa Pange Lingua | Missa La Sol Fa Re Mi | Salve Regina a 5 | Nymphes des bois (written in memoriam Ockeghem)
Recommended albums:
The Tallis Scholars sing Josquin | Josquin Masses: Missa Malheu me bat & Missa Fortuna desperata | Josquin Masses: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie, Missa D’ung aultre amer & Missa Faysant regretz | Josquin: Missa Mater Patris | Josquin: Adier mes amours | Josquin Des Prez (Dufay Ensemble)
Clément Janequin (c. 1485 – 1558) was very popular in his time and known mostly for his widely sung chansons.
Le chant des oyseaulx — the weirdest chanson imitating birdsong in a forest (it gets weirder as you listen). Feels very modern, I can’t believe it was written in the 16th century.
Recommended album:
Janequin: Le chant des oyseaulx
Baroque
Louis Couperin (1626-1661), a member of the Couperin dynasty of composers and performers who mostly wrote harpsichord and organ music. None of his work was published in his lifetime but it is incredibly lucky that it was rediscovered later.
Allemande in D minor | Sarabande 2 | Chaconne la bergeronnette
Recommended album:
Louis Couperin Harpsichord Music
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), originally from Italy, served in the court of Louis XIV. His output includes operas, ballets de cour, music for theatre, and sacred music.
Recommended album:
François Couperin (1668-1773), the most famous member of the Couperin family, known as Couperin le Grand, a very prolific composer. His harpsichord music counts four volumes and was admired by J.S. Bach (who was Couperin’s pen pal).
Recommended albums:
Couperin: Complete Works for Harpsichord | François Couperin: Les Nations (consort music) | Couperin: Les Ombres Errantes (piano)
Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), a major French Baroque composer and music theorist. I owe the discovery of his music to the French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau, who is very charismatic.
Premier livre de pièces de Clavecin, (1706), Suite in A Minor, RCT 1: No. 1 Prélude | Pièces de clavecin (1724), Suite in D Major, RCT 3: No. 1 Les Tendres Plaintes - Rondeau | Pièces de clavecin (1724), Suite in D Major, RCT 3: No. 6 L'Entretien des Muses
Recommended albums:
Jean Rondeau — Vertigo | Rameau: Complete Works for Harpsichord (Trevor Pinnock) | Rameau: Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin (Alexandre Tharaud) | Rameau: Complete Works for Harpsichord (Musica Amphion, Pieter-Jab Belder)
Joseph-Nicolas-Panrace Royer (1703-1755) wrote virtuosic harpsichord music inspired by ancient history and myth.
Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 (1746): No. 11 Le Vertigo - Rondeau (an exceptional, gripping piece, and performance by Jean Rondeau) || Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 (1746): No. 14 La Marche, des Scythes (Jean Rondeau; more like a gallop) || Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 (1746): No. 14 La Marche, des Scythes (slower performance by Marco Mencoboni) || Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 (1746): No. 14 La Marche, des Scythes (and another one by Yago Mahúgo) || Pièces de clavecin, Book 1 (1746): No. 6 L'Aimable (Jean Rondeau)
Recommended albums:
Jean Rondeau — Vertigo | Royer: Pièces de Clavecin (William Christie) | Royer: Complete Harpsichord Works (Yago Mahugo)
Romanticism
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) wrote some of the most beautiful music of late Romanticism, full of lyricism and delectable harmony.
Requiem op. 48 is perhaps the most luminous and mirthful of all requiems ever written, expressing “a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest”.
Pie Jesu from Requiem, sung by a boy soprano
Recommended albums:
Fauré: Complete Music for Solo Piano (Lucas Debargue) | Fauré: Nocturnes (Eric Le Sage) | Fauré: Piano Quartets (Trio Wanderer, Antoine Tamestit) | Fauré: Piano Trio (Trio Isimsiz) | Fauré: Complete Cello Works (Steven Isserlis)
Modernism (~Minimalism)
Eric Satie (1866-1925) showed that a simple, sparse language in piano music can be very effective. His Gnosiennes and Gymnopédies are known and loved well beyond the world of classical music.
Recommended albums:
Eric Satie: The Complete Solo Piano Music
Modernism (Symbolism, Impressionism)
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) greatly expanded expressive capabilities of piano, even though his output isn’t huge. But each piece is a result of painstaking work which often didn’t come easily to him. His chamber music and a few chansons are also exceptional.
Gaspard de la Nuit (Lucas Debargue) | Mirroirs (André Laplante) Jeux d’Eau (Martha Argerich) | Piano trio M. 67 | Piano concerto in G major (Daniil Trifonov) | Sonata for violin and cello | Trois chansons a cappella: II. Trois beaux oiseaux du paradis
Recommended albums:
Ravel: Chamber Music | Ravel: Complete Piano Works (Alexandre Tharaud) | Ravel: Mirroirs (André Laplante)
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, she was a child prodigy who didn’t live beyond the age of 24 due to illness. But in her short life, she wrote a great number of stunning pieces whose gravity and significance is heightened by the circumstances in which they were written.
Pie Jesu for soprano, string quartet, harp and organ is an enchanting piece which she completed by the end of her life | Clairières dans le ciel, song cycle for soprano and piano
Recommended album:
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), composer and ornithologist. I find his music rather difficult to listen to unless it’s a live performance — then it truly comes to life.
Recommended album:
Messiaen: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time; composed when he was a German POW)
[1] The music speaks for itself but I can’t help but quote the first stanza of the lyrics:
Beata viscera Marie virginis Cuius ad ubera Rex magni nominis; Veste sub altera Vim celans numinis Dictavit federa Dei et hominis
Note the direction of melody at the last line.
A lot of work went into this, which I appreciate, and one can always complain about a favorite being left off any list, but.... No Debussy?!?!
This is amazing, I am looking forward to going through these pieces. I've just been reading Philip Ball's "Universe of Stone" on the building of Chartres and the gothic cathedrals. Pérotin is the perfect accompaniment. The right place, the right time, the right vibe.