Essays

Nathan Dougherty is a PhD candidate in Musicology with an emphasis on Historical Performance Practice at Case Western Reserve University. He is currently working on a dissertation entitled “Les mystères de la romance: Sound, Subjectivity, and Song in Early- and Mid-Nineteenth-Century France,” which explores issues of memory and nostalgia, moral pedagogy, gender norms, the construction of national identity, and the performance practices that particularized the French romance. He is also an active tenor soloist and chamber singer, and has performed with numerous early music ensembles including Apollo’s Fire, Les Délices, The Newberry Consort, Atlanta Baroque, and Bourbon Baroque. He holds a master’s in Early Music Performance from the University of Southern California and a bachelor’s in Vocal Performance from St Olaf College.

 

[The romance] is a mine that contains many treasures and true masterworks. Yes, master philosophers, illustrious composers who from the height of their academic thrones regard with a disdainful air all that does not have at least the dimensions of a one-act opera or a studied solfege, know that this melody, sprung from the heart, will be more respected by time than many weighty scores.[1]

While ultimately proven false, Paul Scudo’s 1850 prediction about the enduring relevance of the romance nonetheless points to the significance of the now largely forgotten genre to nineteenth-century French audiences and performers. These short strophic songs—characterized by their “sweet, natural, rustic melodies” and amorous themes[2]—first appeared in the mid-eighteenth century, reaching the height of their popularity in the mid-nineteenth century when as many as 250,000 scores were sold each year. In many ways, the romance was the sonic embodiment of nineteenth-century French style and identity: as Scudo asserted, it was “the manifestation of French sensitivity, grace, and gallantry […] an essential form of our national spirit.”[3] The romance pervaded the Parisian musical scene, appearing in operas, public concerts, and aristocratic and bourgeois salons, as well as drawing rooms. Such songs were sung by opera singers, professional salon singers, and especially amateurs. Indeed, amateurism intersected with and impacted nearly all facets of the tradition, from the way romances were composed, marketed, and sold, to the performance practices that particularized the genre. Ornamentation practices were especially important in this regard. While the romance was known for amateur-friendly restraint and simplicity, there was nonetheless a rich, varied, and even virtuosic embellishment tradition, which challenges modern notions of musical amateurism and upends our sense of French song aesthetics themselves.   

            Before homing in on the romance, it is important to clarify the meaning of amateur. The historical definition was rather broad, and often less pejorative than it is now. The 1835 edition of the Dictionnaire de l’académie française describes an amateur as “one who has considerable attachment and taste for something […] one who loves the arts without practicing them, or without making them a profession.”[4] Amateurism, then, was less a question of skill, and more of profession; it would be wrong to assume that all amateurs were mediocre performers. David Tunley in fact notes that “accounts of musical life in the aristocratic salons are filled with the names of excellent performers who, but for their social position, might have become professional musicians.”[5] However, it would also be disingenuous to suggest that all amateurs were highly skilled. Rather, amateurs displayed a wide range of ability, and the romance was designed to appeal to any and all amateurs. In other words, the romance, and the cultures of performance that sustained it, had to be singable by a wide cross-section of singers.

            In many ways, the cultural and commercial apparatus of the romance was built on and around amateurism. Indeed, Vincent Vivès and Michel Faure note that when the genre emerged in the eighteenth century, it was the first French song genre composed specifically for the domestic sphere, foreshadowing the waxing importance of the Parisian salon.[6] Importantly, unlike earlier genres including the air de cour (or courtly air), the romance represented a pre-revolutionary rupture with absolutism and the aristocracy, as it was also the first song genre that was accessible to the increasingly affluent bourgeoisie, who were the songs’ main consumers. Further, the subject matter—often sentimental and pastoral, and less elevated in tone than previous genres—reinforced the romance’s broad appeal and approachability, helping to explain its pervasiveness in the nineteenth century. Journals that offered romances as a subscription incentive, including the Ménestrel and the Revue et Gazette musicale de Paris, were targeted at such bourgeois non-professional audiences.[7] These journals often contained advertisements for beginners’ music classes taught by Paris’s leading pedagogues and composers. In 1829, for instance, the Revue musicale featured a write-up on a singing course taught by composer and performer Auguste Panseron that promised to teach beginners to better sing romances, noting that “amateurs are no less eager to shine in concerts de société than professional musicians.”[8] The journals also advertised newly-published romance scores and albums directly to amateur consumers, including subscription series like L’Abeille musicale, which sent out two new romances each month. An 1830 annonce in the Revue musicale makes the intended audience plain: “amateur singers, who do not possess expansive enough voices to perform the difficult music of our modern operas, love to jump back to more modest compositions that are better suited to the range of their musical organ.”[9]    

             As this advertisement suggests, simplicity and ease defined the romance’s compositional aesthetic, in a way baking amateurism into the music itself. Paul Thiébault lays out the important features of the genre in his 1813 Du chant, insisting that the music must be “simple, tender, and melancholic.”[10] He writes that accompaniments for harp, guitar, and piano should be as simple as the song, “without superfluous ornaments.”[11] The romance was strictly strophic, allowing for no variation from couplet to couplet. Thiébault even complains that some composers try to “free themselves from this yoke,” but that “only foreigners would consider denaturing the romance like that, transforming into a piece for study, difficulty, and long attention that which is destined to charm only for an instant.”[12] Adolphe-Clair le Carpentier makes clear that this simplicity was in part designed to protect the voices of amateur singers in his Petit traité de composition mélodique (1843), a treatise for aspiring amateur composers. Here, he indicates that most songs are written for soprano and tenor, and that the melody should rest between low C and the F# an octave and a half higher, a comfortable range for nearly all voices. Lower notes, he writes, do not sound good, and higher notes are too fatiguing.[13] Higher pitches should always be approached gradually by step, rather than by leap, to make them easier to sing. Similarly, he recommends against employing difficult intervals, including augmented seconds, tritones, and ninths. As he writes, the romance “must be composed in a way that shows off the voice without fatiguing it.”[14] Antoine Romagnési—whose 1846 L’art de chanter les romances, les chansonnettes, et les nocturnes was written specifically for amateur salon singers—adds that one must account

for the extreme difference that exists between the singing that is appropriate for dramatic arts and the one that is suitable for the salons, or, in other words, between a strong and rebellious voice and the more modest and manageable one of most amateurs [….] One must thus, in this [latter] case, treat the voice with more restraint than one that is more vigorously built.[15]

            Reinforcing these strictures, negative reviews of romances in journals often focused on the ways in which the songs transgressed the bounds of the genre, in part because they rendered the songs too difficult for amateur singers. An anonymous review of L. V. Simon’s Romance de Victor in the Correspondances des amateurs echoes Carpentier’s advice to approach high notes by step and not by leap: “the lyrics of the romance are good for the genre, but not the music, which travels across overly-distant intervals […] for example, one finds a cadence on the syllable ‘jus-’ on a low F […] and one must search for the second syllable ‘-qu’à’ a tenth higher on a high A. One cannot understand how composers who write with such negligence find complaisant enough editors to publish their works.”[16] Similar concerns can also be seen in François Stoepel’s 1834 review of Hector Berlioz’s Neuf mélodies irlandaises.[17] Writing about the fifth song La belle Voyageuse, for instance, he claims that singers will have a hard time finding the correct pitch in measure 13 because of the unusual harmonic progression from A major to G major, which causes the same melody to now be heard a step down.[18] He lashes out even more strongly at the final song in the collection, Elégie en prose. This piece breaks so many rules of the genre that it cannot reasonably be considered a romance: it is through-composed rather than strophic and the lyrics are in prose rather than verse. Perhaps most damning of all, it is immensely challenging for both the singer and the pianist: “The execution of such music offers incredible difficulties even for an expert singer, as well as for a skilled pianist.”[19] The average amateur would not stand a chance.[20]   

            The performance practices cultivated by romance singers reinforced the music’s essential simplicity, seen perhaps most clearly in practices of ornamentation. Numerous historical sources insist that the romance be largely, or even entirely, unadorned.[21] Romagnési, for instance, writes that “seeking to show off with dazzling ornaments […] is to demonstrate that one is deprived of taste and sensibility.”[22] Alexis de Garaudé argues that it is “generally wrong to ruin the simplicity of a romance by adding ornaments.”[23] Thiébault even claims that “ornaments—which form all of the charm of Italian music when they are not over-the-top, but which are always essentially contrary to expression—are almost entirely excluded from the romance [….]”[24] The few modern studies of the romance that touch on performance practices tend to accept these sources at face value, reinscribing the notion that the romance was an essentially unadorned song. As William Cheng asserts, for instance, “vocal virtuosity was uniformly admonished.”[25]

            Yet other historical sources suggest that there was ample room for ornamentation, including additions that might appear virtuosic by today’s standards. Indeed, our modern conception of ‘restrained’ ornamentation—often taken to mean virtually unadorned—is quite different from historical conceptions.[26] Writing in 1837, Maria Anfossi dedicates a portion of A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Art of Singing to the French romance. Like other writers, she cautions that “few are the Romances that require more embellishments than those generally allowed to the Simple style.”[27] Yet she clarifies that there is a vital difference between following the score exactly as written and that "Simple style”:

It may here be proper to remark that there is a considerable difference betwixt singing as it is written and singing in a simple or chaste style; the first does not admit one single additional note, but the second, though deprived of bold and numerous embellishments, does not, however, entirely exclude such as are in character, viz. the appoggiatura, the shake, the turn, the acciaccatura, and other similar simple ornaments; on the contrary, when these are employed judiciously, they very much contribute to render the simplicity of the style more pleasing and acceptable.[28]

It is clear, then, that for scholars interested in this song aesthetic and for performers interested in resurrecting these performance practices, the question is not “should we ornament when singing romances?” Rather, it is "what types of ornaments are appropriate, how many can be used, and where should they be placed?"

            For some writers, the extent of ornamentation depends on the subgenre. Romagnési, though largely anti-ornament, argues that certain types of romances allow for embellishment, including the light-hearted chansonnette, the romance variée, the chivalric narrative, and (in Romagnési’s words) the monotonous mélodie.[29] In other words, those songs that are either light-hearted, unsentimental, heroic, or Germanic in the case of the mélodie. He still maintains that other subgenres should be entirely unadorned, including those on religious subjects, and those characterized by melancholy, tenderness, or grave sentimentality—or what he calls “authentic romances, in view of French taste and character.”[30] Garaudé similarly claims that ornaments can be added to “the bastard genre of the romance that one must more precisely call couplets or chansonnettes. The subject, being light, vivacious, witty, or gracious, invites one to vary some phrases in the final couplets.”[31]

            But we should not be too quick to blindly accept even these restrictions, as numerous other writers—while equally insistent on general ornamental restraint—suggest that all romances can be ornamented. This can be seen clearly in Gustave Carulli’s 1838 Méthode de chant. Though he writes that in the romance, “[which] demands a great simplicity […] all pretentious ornaments would be misplaced,” he precedes to provide two pages of acceptable alterations, using songs from all romance subgenres as examples.[32] This includes Albert Grisar’s Les laveuses du couvent, which Philibert Audebrand described in an 1885 article on the composer as “very melancholic,” putting Carulli at odds with Romagnési and Garaudé.[33] Scores by notable romance composers—including Loïsa Puget and Antoine Marmontel[34]—also occasionally feature ornamentation in later strophes, regardless of subgenre. One such example will be discussed in greater detail below.    

            Reservations about subgenre aside, Romagnési’s treatise provides valuable information on the types of ornaments used and where they were employed. At the end of his treatise, he provides ten romances along with prose descriptions on how they should be performed, a resource whose value for historical performers and scholars cannot be overstated. Four of the romances show at least some ornamentation, including L’amitié, where the final cadence of each strophe is varied with a short cadenza:[35]   

He also indicates that a few other embellishments may be added:

One can lightly ornament different parts of the melody, but with great sobriety, because I am the enemy of untimely elaborations. Here, I have marked the ornaments that can be done on the final cadences, because there, fioritures have their place. Otherwise, all that one could add consists of several rare grupetti, some light portamenti, and little additional notes.[36]

This example, and the other three included in his treatise, reveal several trends concerning ornamentation. First, the initial couplets are performed as written. Second, the ornaments become increasingly complex in subsequent strophes. Third, the most common ornaments are short cadenzas, either at a cadence before a refrain or the final cadence. These cadenzas may also result in octave displacements for the final note. Finally, any ornaments outside the cadenzas should be restricted to small gruppetti (usually three-, four-, or five-note turns) or a few additional notes to fill in intervals. These patterns are corroborated in treatises by Carulli and Isidore Milhès.[37]   

            Charles-François Plantade’s romance À ce soir serves as an especially useful model for the types and extent of ornamentation appropriate in the romance tradition, clarifying what Romagnési meant when he suggested that several additional ornaments could be added to his examples.[38]

Broadly, the romance adheres to the trends established above: it becomes increasingly complex in later strophes, most ornaments are gruppetti, and the most virtuosic passages are reserved for the final cadence of each strophe. There are several differences, however. Importantly, there are considerably more ornaments here, supporting claims that the simple style (to borrow Anfossi’s terminology) can be more decorated than the name might suggest to us now. Further, ornaments can be found throughout each strophe, not simply at major cadences. Some of these are divisions that subdivide long notes into shorter values: in measure 4 of the third strophe, for instance, Plantade subdivides each quarter note into triplets. Some of the internal variations even change the contour of the melody itself. In measure 8 of the second strophe, for instance, Plantade takes the melody up to a high G to approach the cadence on C from above; in measure 12 of the same strophe, the composer once more takes the melody to the high G, creating a marked downward shape rather than the narrower original melody.  

            This is among the most highly decorated scores I have found, but it is not unique.[39] Nor can one dismiss Plantade as an outlier whose views on romance ornamentation do not represent the general practice. Thiébault himself lists him as one of the “most esteemed romanciers.”[40] However, it may be that this example shows the upper limits of ornamentation, and that singers did not need to embellish this heavily if they were unable to. After all, Romagnési offers relevant advice vis-à-vis Le dernier espoir, another highly decorated romance: “if the voice of the interpreter is not sufficiently skilled [for ornaments], it would be better to do away with them completely and sing all three strophes the same as the first.”[41] Nevertheless, if we consider À ce soir a valid roadmap for embellishing other romances, as I argue we should, this score also suggests that amateurs at least had the option—and many had the ability—to add a great deal of fairly virtuosic ornamentation, while still maintaining the songs’ vital simplicity.[42]    

            The ornamentation practices described here represent only one of many performance practices that particularized the romance, contributing to the genre’s unique aesthetic of delicacy, grace, and subtlety, in many ways sonically embodying the Parisian salon itself. Elsewhere, I have written about the now-lost vocal techniques, timbral shadings, and gestural language that made these seemingly simple songs resonate with nineteenth-century audiences.[43] Taken together, these salon practices differed enormously from the more Italianate operatic ones heard throughout Paris, and even professional singers were encouraged in the presses and in treatises to respect the romance’s simplicity and elegance. In a review of an aristocratic salon, for instance, Jacques Schoboerlichneraasfeldenberg (a delightful pseudonym) counsels Annette Lebrun, who sang at the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra, to “not perform a simple and tender romance with the dramatic expression suitable for the juive Rachel when she is about to be thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil.”[44] Of course, to claim that this beautiful, beloved song tradition came about merely to cater to less-skilled amateur performers is overly simplistic, and devalues a significant cultural symbol. However, it is equally misguided to assert that the needs of the domestic and private performer were a nonfactor; they very much impacted how the romance was composed, performed, and heard. A better understanding of the performance and listening practices that animated the romance—and the ways in which they intersected with the actual performers and consumers of the music—allows us to better understand not only genre itself, but a lost and historically critical French soundworld, one that (while certainly distinct and worthy of greater study and performance in its own right) helped pave the way for the now better-known mélodies of composers like Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc, and Claude Debussy. Théophile Lemaire and Henri Lavoix perhaps summarize the legacy of the romance performance tradition best in their 1881 Le chant:

It is these [salon singers] who have given the romance such a large place in our French art; it is them who seem to have perpetuated through the centuries the national taste for simple music, it is true, but [music that is] tender, elegant, without false brio, and without exaggeration in its expressive effect. We will not forget these charmers of the past; to forget them would be to neglect one of the most characteristic parts of our French school of singing.[45]  

 

Notes

[1] Paul Scudo, “Esquisse d’une histoire de la romance depuis son origine jusqu’à nos jours,” Critique et littérature musicales (Paris: Amyot, 1850), 378. “[La romance] est un mine qui renferme de précieux trésors et de vrais chefs-d’oeuvres. Oui, graves philosophes, compositeurs illustres qui du haut de votre trône académique regardez d’un air dédaigneux tout ce qui n’a pas moins les proportions d’un opéra en un acte ou d’une étude de solfège, sachez que telle mélodie jaillie du coeur sera plus respectée du temps que beaucoup de grosses partitions.”

[2] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dictionnaire de musique (Paris: Librairie Duchesne, 1768), 361: “une mélodie douce, naturelle, champêtre.”

[3] Paul Scudo, “Esquisse d’une histoire de la romance depuis son origine jusqu’à nos jours,” Critique et littérature musicales (Paris: Amyot, 1850), 343-344.

[4] Dictionnaire de l’académie française, 6^th ed. (Paris: Institut de France, 1835), s.v. “Amateur.” “Celui qui a beaucoup d’attachement, de goût pour quelque chose. Amateur de la vertu, de la gloire. Amateur de louanges. Amateur de la nouveauté. Amateur des beaux-arts. Amateur de la peinture, de la sculpture, de la musique. Il se dit absolument de Celui qui aime les beaux-arts sans les exercer ou sans en faire profession. Il n’est pas artiste, il n’est qu’amateur. C’est un talent d’amateur, un ouvrage d’amateur.”

[5] David Tunley, Salons, Singers and Songs: A Background to Romantic French Song 1830-1870 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 23.

[6] Michel Faure and Vincent Vivès, Histoire et poétique de la mélodie française (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2000), 22-23.

[7] For more on nineteenth-century French music journals and criticism, see Katharine Ellis, Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century France: La revue et gazette musicale de Paris, 1834-1880 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

[8] “Cours de musique de M. Panseron,” Revue musicale, t. IV, second year (1829), 302-303. “Les amateurs ne sont pas moins jaloux de briller dans les concerts de société que les musiciens de profession.”   

[9] “L’abeille musicale,” Revue musicale, t. VI, fourth year (1830), 235. “Les amateurs de chant, qui ne possèdent pas une voix assez étendue pour bien exécuter la musique difficile de nos opéras modernes, aiment à se rejeter sur des compositions plus modestes et qui conviennent davantage à la portée de leur organe musical.”

[10] Paul Thiébault, Du chant et particulièrement de la romance (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1813), fn 44. “[La romance] doit être simple, tendre et mélancolique.”

[11] Ibid. “Que ces accompagnemens, simples comme le chant, ne comportent guère d’agrémens superflus.” The guitar, harp, and piano were also associated with amateur music making. See, for instance, Erik Stenstadvold, “‘We hate the guitar’: Prejudice and Polemic in the Music Press in Early-19^th-Century Europe,” Early Music 41, no. 4 (Nov., 2013), 596.

[12] Thiébault, 54. “Il y a des musiciens qui ont voulu s’affranchir de ce joug [….] Mais il n’y a que des étrangers qui aient pu songer à dénaturer ainsi la romance, et à transformer en un morceau d’étude, de difficulté et de longue attention, ce qui n’est destiné qu’à charmer un instant.”

[13] Adolphe le Carpentier, Petit traité de composition mélodique (Paris: Meissonnier et Heugel, 1843), 15.

[14] Ibid., 16. “Les mélodies vocales doivent être composées de manière à faire briller la voix sans la fatiguer.”

[15] Antoine Romagnési, L’art de chanter les romances, les chansonnettes, et les nocturnes (Paris: the author, 1846), 5. “Mais si l’on se rend compte de l’extrême différence qui existe entre le chant tel que l’exige l’art dramatique et celui qui convient aux salons, ou, pour autrement dire, entre une voix forte et rebelle et celle plus modeste et plus maniable de la pluralité des amateurs de la société, on se convaincra que, pour ces derniers, les études trop laborieuses ne sont pas de première nécessité; je dirai même qu’elles sont dangereuses, car une voix douce annonce un conformation delicate du larynx. On doit donc, dans ce cas, traiter cet organe avec plus de management que celui qui est plus vigoureusement contitué.”

[16] “Romance de Victor,” Correspondance des amateurs musiciens, no. 33 (Jul. 9, 1803), 4. “Les paroles de cette romance sont bien dans le genre, main non le chant, qui parcourt des intervalles trop distans […] example: on trouve un point d’orgue sur la syllable jus-, fa en bas, clef de sol, et la seconde syllable qu’à, il faut l’aller chercher à la Dixième, la d’en haut. On ne conçoit pas comment des compositeurs qui écrivent avec cette négligence, trouvent des éditeurs assez complaisans pour se charger de leurs ouvrages.” For more on the Correspondance des amateur musiciens—a journal designed to, among other things, review sheet music specifically for amateurs—see Ellis, 13-17.

[17] François Stoepel, “Hector Berlioz, Neuf mélodies, imitées de l’Anglais, (Irish Mélodies), pour une et deux voix, et choeur, avec acc. de piano,” La Gazette musicale de Paris, no. 21 (1834), 169-171.

[18] Julian Rushton explains how Berlioz accomplishes this unusual modulation through a series of “subdominant plunges.” For more, see Rushton, The Musical Language of Berlioz (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 65-66.

[19] Stoepel, 171. “L’exécution d’une telle musique offre des difficultés inouies même à un chanteur très exercé, ainsi qu’à un pianiste fort habile.”

[20] For more on the ungrammatical nature of Elégie en prose, see Francesca Brittan, Music and Fantasy in the Age of Berlioz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 171-173.

[21] This restraint differentiates the romance from earlier French song traditions like the air de cour and the brunette. For an explanation of ornamentation in the seventeenth-century air de cour, see Bénigne de Bacilly, A Commentary Upon the Art of Proper Singing, translated by Austin B. Caswell (New York: Institute of Medieval Music, 1968).

[22] Romagnési, 12 and 18. “Chercher en ce cas à briller par le prestige des ornaments […] c’est de se montrer privé de goût et de sensibilité.” He also cautions singers to avoid “fioritures à pretention.”

[23] Alexis de Garaudé, Méthode complète de chant (Paris: the author), 144. “On a généralement tort de gâter la simplicité de la Romance en y ajoutant des traits.”

[24] Thiébault, 61. “Ces agrémens, qui font tout le charme de la musique italienne, quand ils ne sont pas outrés, mais qui toujours sont essentiellement contraires à l’expression, sont presque entièrement exclus de la romance, qui, indépendamment d’une juste expression, ne demande que de la simplicité, du sentiment, de la grâce et du naturel.”

[25] William Cheng, “Hearts for Sale: The French Romance and the Sexual Traffic of Musical Mimicry,” 19^th-Century Music 35, no. 1 (Summer 2011), 48. For a similar example, see Tunley, 60.

[26] For more on general practices of ornamentation, see Clive Brown, Classical & Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), especially Chapter 12 “Embellishment, Ornamentation and Improvisation.” See also Will Crutchfield, “Vocal Ornamentation in Verdi: The Phonographic Evidence,” 19^th-Century Music 7, no. 1 (Summer 1983), 3-54.  

[27] Maria Anfossi, A Theoretical and Practical Treatise on the Art of Singing (London: the author, c. 1837), 74.

[28] Ibid., 69.

[29] Romagnési, 12, 17-20.

[30] Ibid., 17. “Les romances sentimentales et héroïques sont les véritables romances, eu égard au goût et au caractère français.”

[31] Garaudé, 144. “Il y a cependent quelques cas ou le sens des paroles peut en comporter, principalement dans le genre bâtard de Romance qu’on doit plus particulièrement nommer COUPLETS ou CHANSONNETTES. Le sujet, en étant léger, vif, spirituel ou gracieux, invite à varier quelques phrases des derniers couplets; mais il est de rigueur de chanter toujours le premier, tel que le compositeur l’a écrit.”

[32] Gustave Carulli, Méthode de chant (Paris: Bernard Latte, 1838), 67.

[33] Philibert Audebrand, “Les soirées d’Albert Grisar,” Le Guide musicale, year 31, no. 7 (Feb. 12, 1885), 52.

[34] See for instance Loïsa Puget, M’aimerez-vous toujours? (Paris: Henry Lemoine, c.1840) and Antoine Marmontel, Aime-moi bien, mon amour! (Paris: Le Ménestrel, 1838).  

[35] Romagnési, 14-15.

[36] Romagnési, 29. “On peut orner légèrement les différentes parties de la mélodie, mais pourtant avec une grande sobriété, car je suis l’ennemie des broderies placées intempestivement. Dans celle-ci j’ai marqué les traits qui peuvent être faits sur le point d’orgue final, car là, les fioritures sont à leur place. Ailleurs, tout ce qu’on pourrait ajouter consiste en quelques rares grupetti, en quelques légers ports de voix et petites notes additionnelles.”

[37] See Carulli, 68-69 and Isidore Milhès, Guide du chanteur, traité pratique de l’art du chant (Paris: Maison Boieldieu, 1854), 108-110. This latter treatise is especially useful for operatic romances, which in many ways resemble the salon romance.

[38] Charles-François Plantade, À ce soir (Paris: J. Frey).  

[39] See, for instance, Charles-Henri Plantade’s Romance chantée dans le cercle (Paris: Sieber, c. 1806-1814). Another version can be found without ornamentation with a guitar accompaniment by Hector Berlioz: “Romance de Plantade,” Hector Berlioz Recueil de Romances for Voice and Guitar, edited by M. Henke and M. Stegemann (Heidelberg: Chanterelle, c. 1986), 28-29.  

[40] Thiébault, 55.

[41] Romagnési, 29. “Si l’organe de l’interprète n’est pas assez exercé, il sera mieux de les supprimer tout à fait et de chanter les trois couplets sur la notation du premier.”  

[42] Milhès recommends consulting notated examples of ornamentation to learn how to create your own, citing Giacomo Meyerbeer’s romance “Plus blanche” from Les Huguenots as a model. For more, see Milhès, 104.

[43] Nathan Dougherty, “Les mystères de la romance: Sound, Song, and Subjectivity in Early- and Mid-Nineteenth-Century France,” PhD diss. (Case Western Reserve University: forthcoming).

[44] Jacques Schoboerlichneraasfeldenberg (pseudonym), “A S.A.R le Prince de ***,” Revue et gazette musicale de Paris, year 6, no. 3 (Jan. 20, 1839), 20. “De véritables amis pourraient cependant conseiller à mademoiselle Annette Lebrun de se moins préoccuper de faire vibrer sa voix dans ses cordes basses, de poser et d'attaquer plus franchement les cordes hautes, et de ne point mettre à une simple et tendre romance l'expression dramatique qui convient à Ia juive Rachel qu'on va précipiter dans une chaudière d'huile bouillante.”

[45] Théophile Lemaire and Henri Lavoix fils, Le chant: ses principes et son histoire (Paris: Heugel et fils, 1881), 323. “Nous voulons parler des chanteurs de salon, de ceux qui n'osant aborder le théâtre, ou ne le pouvant, se consacrent à un art charmant, plein de délicatesse et de goût, exigeant un talent de diction, d'expression et de virtuosité que nos diseurs seuls semblent avoir possédé, et qui, depuis Nyert, en passant par Lambert et Garat, est parvenu jusqu'à nous. Ce sont ces artistes qui ont donné au genre de la romance une si grande place dans notre art français; ce sont eux qui semblent avoir perpétué à travers les siècles le goût national de la musique facile, il est vrai, mais tendre, élégante, sans faux brio, comme sans exagération, dans l'effet expressif. Nous ne les laisserons pas à l'écart ces charmeurs du passé; les oublier serait négliger un des côtés les plus caractéristiques de notre école française de chant.”

 

 

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