Eliegie (MS2011-3222-032)
Dublin Core
Title
Eliegie (MS2011-3222-032)
Alternative Title
Élégie
Subject
Description
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-032 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 57-58.
Strophic song; single verse.
“Eliegie” [“Élégie;” “Elegy] is the text of the ca. 1875 French art song “Élégie,” with words by Louis Gallet and music by Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet. Massenet (1842-1912) was a very successful French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. Louis Gallet (1835-1898) was a French writer of operatic libretti, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles, who is remembered above all for his adaptations of fiction and Scripture to provide librettos of cantatas and operas, notably by composers Georges Bizet, Camille Saint-Saêns and Jules Massenet.
The instrumental version and song setting of “Élégie” were two of the most popular compositions of the late 1800s in France and Europe. Massenet’s original 1866 composition was a piano piece simply titled “Mélodie,” part of a suite titled “Pièces de Genre, Op. 10 Nº 5.” He incorporated the piece into the music for Leconte de Lisle’s play "Érynnies" (1873). The song setting with words by Gallet was first published in France around 1875.
Massenet’s composition seems to have been very popular with art music lovers in Montreal in the early 1900s. An English-language setting of this song was published in the Montreal literary and musical review Passe-temps Montréal Vol. 7, no 170 (1901). In 1903, Montreal’s Berliner label distributed the Gallet-Massenet setting featuring Emilio Eduardo de Gogorza (1872-1949), an American baritone of Spanish parentage. In 1906, Montreal tenor Édouard LeBel (1865-1939) also recorded a setting for the Berliner label (issue # 3623). In 1922, Montreal baritone Placide Morency recorded a setting for distribution on the Apex and Starr labels of the Montreal-based Compo company (issue # 12041, side A); Montreal tenor Joseph-Henri Thibaudeau recorded a setting the following year for the Columbia label (issue #E3703; matrix #44280). You can hear Placide Morency’s recording on Library and Archives Canada’s Virtual Gramophone website: http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=668120.77880&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&itm=31397556
Strophic song; single verse.
“Eliegie” [“Élégie;” “Elegy] is the text of the ca. 1875 French art song “Élégie,” with words by Louis Gallet and music by Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet. Massenet (1842-1912) was a very successful French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. Louis Gallet (1835-1898) was a French writer of operatic libretti, plays, romances, memoirs, pamphlets, and innumerable articles, who is remembered above all for his adaptations of fiction and Scripture to provide librettos of cantatas and operas, notably by composers Georges Bizet, Camille Saint-Saêns and Jules Massenet.
The instrumental version and song setting of “Élégie” were two of the most popular compositions of the late 1800s in France and Europe. Massenet’s original 1866 composition was a piano piece simply titled “Mélodie,” part of a suite titled “Pièces de Genre, Op. 10 Nº 5.” He incorporated the piece into the music for Leconte de Lisle’s play "Érynnies" (1873). The song setting with words by Gallet was first published in France around 1875.
Massenet’s composition seems to have been very popular with art music lovers in Montreal in the early 1900s. An English-language setting of this song was published in the Montreal literary and musical review Passe-temps Montréal Vol. 7, no 170 (1901). In 1903, Montreal’s Berliner label distributed the Gallet-Massenet setting featuring Emilio Eduardo de Gogorza (1872-1949), an American baritone of Spanish parentage. In 1906, Montreal tenor Édouard LeBel (1865-1939) also recorded a setting for the Berliner label (issue # 3623). In 1922, Montreal baritone Placide Morency recorded a setting for distribution on the Apex and Starr labels of the Montreal-based Compo company (issue # 12041, side A); Montreal tenor Joseph-Henri Thibaudeau recorded a setting the following year for the Columbia label (issue #E3703; matrix #44280). You can hear Placide Morency’s recording on Library and Archives Canada’s Virtual Gramophone website: http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=668120.77880&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&itm=31397556
Abstract
Singer mourns lost love whose loss makes the coming of spring futile and sad.
Source
VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Song Item Type Metadata
Supplied Title
Eliegie
Tranlsated Title
Elegy
First Line
Oh, doux printemp d’autrefois
Composer
Massenet, Jules Émile Frédéric
Lyricist
Gallet, Louis
Transcription
1
Oh, doux printemp d’autrefois
Verte saison, vous avez fui pour toujour
Je ne voit plus le ciel bleu
Je n’entend plus le ciel bleu
Je n’entant plus
Les chant joyeux, des oiseaux
En emportant mon bonheur
Oh bien aimee
Tu t’en est aller
Et c’est en vain que revient le printemp
Oui sans retour avec toi
De gai soleil les jours riant, sont partit
Car dans mon coeur
Tout est somber et glace
Tout est fletrie pour toujour
Fin
Oh, doux printemp d’autrefois
Verte saison, vous avez fui pour toujour
Je ne voit plus le ciel bleu
Je n’entend plus le ciel bleu
Je n’entant plus
Les chant joyeux, des oiseaux
En emportant mon bonheur
Oh bien aimee
Tu t’en est aller
Et c’est en vain que revient le printemp
Oui sans retour avec toi
De gai soleil les jours riant, sont partit
Car dans mon coeur
Tout est somber et glace
Tout est fletrie pour toujour
Fin
Files
Collection
Citation
“Eliegie (MS2011-3222-032),” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed December 5, 2025, https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/877.
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