Plaisir d'amour

Plaisir d'amour is a famous French love song. The text comes from the novella Célestine by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian , which was published in 1784. The melody was composed a little later by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini , who called himself Johann Paul Aegidius Schwarzendorf at a young age; it was first published in 1785.

History and content

His text names an escaped love "Sylvie" of the singer and addresses the conflict that people look for love and only find a brief, orgiastic fulfillment in it, while the grief lasts a lifetime. The refrain:

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment,
Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

The joy of love hardly lasts for a moment,
lovesickness lasts a lifetime.

The melody appeared in 1785 in the first volume of Jean Baudrais ' Etrennes de Polymnie together with a guitar accompaniment by Ange-Étienne-Xavier Poisson de La Chabeaussière . The song with piano accompaniment was published by Le Normant d'Étiolles in Paris in 1790. The violin virtuoso and publisher Jean-Jérôme Imbault (1753–1832) is said to have published an instrumental version in Paris around 1790.

Hector Berlioz orchestrated the melody in 1859 for a small orchestra. The French oboist and composer Casimir-Theophile Lalliet (1837-1892) processed the melody into a fantasy with the title: Fantasie sur une melodie de Martini . Movement name: Allegro agitato - molto lento. The Japanese Keiko Abe processed the melody for the pieces Marimba d'amore (11 min.) And in 2002 Piacer d'amor (6 min.) For marimbaphone .

Well-known interpreters of the song were: Fritz Wunderlich (1965, e.g. in The Art of Fritz Wunderlich , Deutsche Grammophon , 2005), Yvonne Printemps (1931), Tino Rossi (1955), Joan Baez (1961), Judith Durham von den Seekers (1963), Marianne Faithfull (1965), Nana Mouskouri (1971), Brigitte Bardot , Barbara Hendricks , Andrea Bocelli , Mireille Mathieu , Peter Alexander , Ivan Rebroff and Eddy Mitchell . The song is an anchor point of the performances of one of the world's best a cappella singing ensembles, the King's Singers from England. Helen Vita sings a German version with an ironic-frivolous text by Walter Brandin on her album “The cheekiest chansons from old France” (1965) .

Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley , covered by UB40 among others, is based on the melody of the song.

This song left a decisive mark on two films: The Heiress (1949) and Sliver (1993). In Wir sind keine Engel the song is used with a new text by Roger Wagner ( Ma France Bien-Aimée ).

The song was the introductory melody of the wheel of fortune on SR1 Europawelle .

text

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment.
chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

J'ai tout quitté pour l'ingrate Sylvie.
Elle me quitte et prend un autre amant.

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment.
chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

Tant que cette eau coulera doucement
vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie,

Je t'aimerai me répétait Sylvie.
L'eau coule encore. Elle a changé pourtant.

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment.
chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.