Paris at Night

Notes on the Program

by Steven Blier

An American strolling into a foreign hotel may feel his bosom swell with pride as he hears Gershwin or Irving Berlin played by a little jazz trio, or even just piped in over the Muzak. Our popular songs have become some of our best ambassadors, putting people at their ease the world over. But the French have an equally fascinating tradition of popular song, a Golden Age of perhaps even greater duration than ours. Though you may think you rarely hear these songs, occasionally you are treated to one of them while riding an elevator or toughing out a Bar Mitzvah--perhaps ”I Wish You Love,” courtesy of the French master Charles Trenet, or “La Vie en Rose,” in a music-minus-Piaf arrangement.

The origins of French popular song are quite different from those of American standards, many of the which came from Broadway shows or movies. For the French, the locus classicus for popular song is the cabaret or the music hall, where solo performers (who sometimes wrote their own material) built audiences. A song intended to hold its place in a story line fulfills certain demands, but the lone entertainer in a spotlight needs a different kind of song in order to provide other kinds of pleasures.

For the complete text of these program notes, please e-mail us at:  info@nyfos.org.