A.-M. Goulet, L. Naudeix (Eds.), La Fabrique des paroles de musique en France à l'âge classique - Theatre and Performance

French Literature Reviews - 2026

A.-M. Goulet, L. Naudeix (Eds.), La Fabrique des paroles de musique en France à l'âge classique
Theatre and Performance

La Fabrique des paroles de musique en France à l'âge classique

Edited by Anne-Madeleine Goulet and Laura Naudeix
Mardaga – Centre de musique baroque de Versailles 2010

  • EAN13 : ISBN:9782804700607
  • 39€
  • Paperback, 17x24 cm, 352 p.

Seventeen specialists from diverse backgrounds—including literary and music history, linguistics, and stylistics—explore in this volume the crafting ("la fabrique") of musical lyrics in classical-era France. By peering into the workshop of the poet and the composer, the contributors shed light on the inner workings of lyrical creation. These multifaceted perspectives trace the broad outlines of a history of sung poetry while contextualizing the production of works and the evolution of period genres, ranging from psalms, ballet narratives, and airs to opera librettos, which represent one of the crowning achievements of the Grand Siècle. This extensive study will be of particular interest to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century scholars—musicologists, literary historians, and theater historians alike—as well as to performers of French baroque music.

Table of Contents:
Anne-Madeleine Goulet and Laura Naudeix :
Introduction.

Part One: Poetry and Musical Lyrics
Contexts
Alain Génetiot: Lyric poetry in the 17th century: definitions and theoretical issues
Théodora Psychoyou: On meter, rhythm, and the status of time in the seventeenth century: a new rhythmopoetics
Brigitte Van Wymeersch: Marin Mersenne and text-music relations
Stéphane Macé: The music of the air de cour through the lens of rhetorical and stylistic analysis
Michel Gribenski : The invention of poetico-musical aperiodicity in French monodic song in the mid-seventeenth century: conditions, modalities, and interpretations

The Poet's Workshop
Catherine Massip: From the air sérieux to recitative: definitions and practices
Georgie Durosoir: Narrative and recitative: from word to deed
Céline Bohnert: The poetics of musical lyrics according to Pierre Perrin: the example of La Mort d'Adonis
Emmanuel Bury: Musical lyrics and the aesthetics of French prose: from collocatio verborum to the art of the period
Raphaëlle Legrand: Four monologues from Dardanus: Charles-Antoine Le Clerc de La Bruère and Jean-Philippe Rameau at work

Part Two: The Modalities of Musical Setting
Prosody
Olivier Bettens: Music schooled by words
Benoît de Cornulier: Lyrics of airs sérieux: poetry or song?
Thomas Leconte: Texts of "ancient airs" in the Recueils de vers mis en chant (1661-1680): “curious remarks” on the art of publishing “musical lyrics”

Impact of Music on the Text
Isabelle His and Jean Vignes: Music and its texts: can we restore Baïf's psalms as set to music by Le Jeune?
Jean Duron: The choruses of Lully's Thésée: an "idle client"?
Thierry Favier: Modes of integration and function of Lullian opera in Françoise Pascal's collections of spiritual parodies
Benjamin Pintiaux: Mechanisms of parodic writing in the Cantiques spirituels and Noëls of Abbé Pellegrin

This collective volume examines the intricate relationship between text and melody during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, an era defined by the flourishing of courtly arts under the Ancien Régime. Bringing together seventeen contributors from literary history, musicology, linguistics, and stylistics, the book investigates how poets and composers collaborated within the broader tradition of French classicism. By analyzing specific forms such as the air de cour, sacred psalms, ballet narratives, and Lullian opera librettos, the authors illuminate the aesthetic principles that governed musical lyrics during the Grand Siècle and subsequent Enlightenment period.

The essays are organized into thematic sections that address theoretical definitions, workshop practices, and the technical modalities of prosody and musical setting. Scholars and practitioners of early modern culture will find detailed discussions on figures like Jean-Philippe Rameau, Marin Mersenne, and Pierre Perrin, alongside close readings of period manuscripts and printed collections. This interdisciplinary approach serves researchers investigating the evolution of French dramatic and lyrical genres, offering valuable insights into how language and sound were harmonized to serve theatrical and courtly performance.