Ah! vous dirai-je, maman

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Melody of Ah! vous dirai-je, maman

Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman (Oh! Shall I tell you, Mama) is a French folk song. In German-speaking countries, the melody is best known from the Christmas carol Morgen der Santa Claus and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano work Twelve Variations in C major on the song “Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman” .

history

The melody is said to have originated around 1740, but this is not documented. Occasionally the composition is attributed to Nicolas Dezède (around 1745–1792), for which there is no evidence and which seems doubtful in view of the life dates of Dezède. Not create confusion appears because Mozart wrote Piano Variations KV 264 on a work by Dezède that in Köchelverzeichnis the Variations on Ah! vous dirai-je, maman KV 265 immediately precede.

The melody first appeared in print in 1761 without words. Underlaid with text, the song first appeared around 1765 under the title Le Faux Pas in a manuscript called Recueil de Chanson . It was first printed with text under the title La Confidence naïve in MDL ** (= Charles de Lusse ): Recueil de Romances Volume 2, Brussels 1774. Another print took place under the title Les Amours de Silvandre around 1780 in Paris.

The easy-to-sing melody was soon transferred to nursery rhymes . The French rhymes parodied the original text. New texts have also been added to the melody in other languages. As an alphabet song with the lyrics “ABCDEFG” it was first published in 1824 in Musikalischer Haus-Freund , published by B. Schott's Sons in Mainz. With the text of Bah, Bah, a Black Sheep , composed in 1744 , it was first published in AH Rosewig: Illustraded National Nursery Songs and Games , Philadelphia 1879, and with the text by Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, first published in 1806 , in The Singing Master , vol. III, First-Class Tune Book, 2nd edition, London 1838.

melody

melody

The melody is in four-four time . It is in the form a - b - a of a three-part song , with all three parts consisting of four bars. The melody is simple: apart from a few jumps, the sequence of intervals prim - second is regularly repeated . The rhythm is also simple: apart from two half notes at the end of the two two-measure phrases in part a, there are only quarter notes.

The range is a sixth. After a fifth jump from the root note, the melody remains in a high register in the first half of part a, only to gradually return to the root note in the second half. In the middle part b, the same two-measure motif is repeated twice with a gradual decrease from pitch V to pitch II.

text

original

First published in Recueil de Romances , 1774

The original text, entitled La Confidence naïve, is a shepherd- poem- style love poem in which a shepherd girl tells her mother about her encounter with her lover.

Original text

Ah! Vous dirai-je maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Depuis que j'ai vu Silvandre,
Me regarder d'un air tendre;
Mon cœur dit à chaque instant:
“Peut-on vivre sans amant? “

L'autre jour, dans un bosquet,
De fleurs il fit un bouquet;
Il en para ma houlette
Me disant: «Belle brunette,
Flore est moins belle que toi;
L'amour moins tendre que moi.

Étant faite pour charmer,
Il faut plaire, il faut aimer;
C'est au printemps de son age,
Qu'il est dit que l'on s'engage.
Si vous tardez plus longtemps,
On regrette ces moments. »

Je rougis et par malheur
Un soupir trahit mon cœur.
Le cruel avec adresse,
Profita de ma faiblesse:
Hélas, Maman! Un faux pas
Me fit tomber dans ses bras.

Je n'avais pour tout soutien
Que ma houlette et mon chien.
L'amour, voulant ma défaite,
Écarta chien et houlette;
Ah! Qu'on goûte de douceur,
Quand l'amour prend soin d'un cœur!

Translation

Oh! Shall I tell you mom
what is causing my agony?
Ever since I saw Silvander
looking at me tenderly,
my heart has been saying:
“Can you live without lovers?” The

next day, in a wood, he
picked a bouquet of flowers;
decorated my staff with it
and said to me: “Beautiful brunette,
Flora is less beautiful than you,
love less tender than me.

Since you are made to be charming, you
must please, love.
In the spring of your age, they
say, you have to commit.
If you wait longer, you
will mourn those moments. ”

I blushed, and unfortunately
a sigh betrayed my heart.
The cruel one skillfully took advantage of
my weakness:
Oh, Mama! One wrong step
made me fall into his arms.

I had no help other
than my staff and my dog.
Love wanted my defeat
and kept dog and stick aside.
Oh! what sweetness one feels
when love embraces the heart.

As a male name, Clitandre or Lysandre occurs instead of Silvandre. Also, some published versions have only four stanzas and do not include the middle stanza.

childrens song

Ah! vous dirai-je, maman in the French children's book Vieilles Chansons pour les Petits Enfants

The nursery rhymes on the melody are parodies of La Confidence naïve . You pick up the first two lines of the love poem and then continue with the "torments" children have to deal with. Several variants are known, some of which are shown here:

Original texts

Ah! Vous dirai-je maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je raisonne
Comme une grande personne.
Moi je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que la raison.

Ah! Vous dirai-je maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je demande
De la soupe et de la viande.
Moi, je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que les mignons.

Ah! Vous dirai-je maman
Ce qui cause mon tourment?
Papa veut que je retienne
des verbes la longue antienne.
Moi, je dis que les bonbons
Valent mieux que les leçons.

Analogous translations

Oh! Shall I tell you mama
what's causing my agony?
Dad wants me to think
like an adult.
I say that the candy is
better than the common sense.

Oh! Shall I tell you mama
what's causing my agony?
Papa wants me to ask
for soup and meat.
I say the sweets are
better than the fillets.

Oh! Shall I tell you mama
what's causing my agony?
Dad wants me to remember
the long lyre of the verbs.
I say the sweets are
better than the lessons

Some versions have “les chansons” (the songs) instead of “les bonbons”.

Re-use of the melody

Classical music

Beginning of the theme with Mozart
Mozart's Variation No. 8

Several classical music composers have incorporated the melody into their works, including:

In other works the melody is only quoted briefly, for example in:

It is occasionally claimed that the theme of the second movement of Joseph Haydn's Symphony No. 94 in G major ("with the bang") from 1791 bears similarities with the song melody, but an intended quote is rather unlikely.

Songs

Alphabet song in English

The melody is used for many songs around the world because it is so easy to sing, especially children's songs. The alphabet song , in which the letters of the alphabet are sung on the individual notes , is common in several languages .

In the German-speaking world, the melody for the Christmas carol, Morgen comes Santa Claus and the children's song Morgen woll'n wir Hafer mäh'n, is used. Also the play song, which is widespread among German-Americans in several melody variants. Isn't that a schnitzel bank? is sung to this melody, among other things.

The versions in other languages ​​include:

  • English Baa, Baa, Blacksheep (Mäh, mäh, black sheep) and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (Funkle, Funkle, small star),
  • French Quand trois poules vont au champ (Three chickens walk into the field),
  • Dutch Altijd is Kortjakje ziek (Kortjakje is always sick),
  • Spanish Campanita del lugar (little bell of the place),
  • Greek Φεγγαράκι μου λαμπρό (My moon is shining),
  • Turkish Daha thin annemizin (yesterday when we were our mother),
  • Hungarian Hull a pelyhes fehér hó (The fluffy white snow falls),
  • Vietnamese Cùng quây quần (let's get together).

literature

  • James J. Fuld: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star . In: Book of World-Famous Music . 5th edition. Dover Publications, Inc., New York 2000, ISBN 0-486-41475-2 , pp. 593 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Theo Mang, Sunhilt Mang (ed.): The song source . Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 2007, ISBN 978-3-7959-0850-8 , pp. 943 f .

Web links

Commons : Ah! vous dirais-je, Maman  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Ah! vous dirai-je, maman  - sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ after French punctuation with a space before the exclamation mark
  2. ^ Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin : Chansons Populaires du Pays de France, avec notices et accompagnements de piano . Tome second. Heugel, Paris 1903, p. 36–38 ( digitized on Gallica ).
  3. ^ A b Simone Wallon: Romances et vaudevilles français dans les variations pour piano et violon de Mozart. In: Erich Schenk (Ed.): Report on the International Musicological Congress Vienna Mozart Year 1956, June 3rd to 9th. Böhlau, Graz 1958, DNB 450388395 , pp. 666-672.
  4. ^ Nicolas Slonimsky, Laura Kuhn, Dennis McIntire: Dezède, Nicolas. In: Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians , online at encyclopedia.com, accessed July 3, 2020.
  5. ↑ Maurice Hinson (Ed.): Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. "Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman," K. 265, 12 Variations on: For Early Advanced Piano. Alfred Music, 1995, ISBN 1-4574-4583-2 , p. 3 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  6. ^ Nine variations on the Arietta Lison dormait from the opera Julie by Nicolas Dezède KV 264 (315d) : Score and critical report in the New Mozart Edition
  7. ↑ Nine variations on the Arietta Lison dormait from the opera Julie by Nicolas Dezède KV 264 (315d) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
  8. ↑ MDL **: Recueil de romances historiques, tendres et burlesques, tant anciennes que modern, avec les airs notés . tape 2 , 1774, pp. 75 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  9. ↑ James J. Fuld: Book of World-Famous Music , 2000, p. 593 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  10. ↑ a b James J. Fuld: Book of World-Famous Music , 2000, p. 594 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  11. ^ Michael Walter: Haydn's symphonies. A musical factory guide . CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-44813-3 , p. 111 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  12. ↑ Schnitzelbank , Beth's notes, accessed February 16, 2019