Chants d'Auvergne

As a child growing up in the Auvergne, a striking landscape of craggy mountains and wooded hillsides in central France, composer Joseph Canteloube would go walking with his father, hearing locals singing the folksongs of the region. They left a lasting impression, and as a grown man he turned collector, “roaming through farms and villages to listen”. Having noted them down, Canteloube set about arranging the songs for solo voice and orchestra. From 1923 to 1930 he published five series of these arrangements: 27 songs in total. Verses in the characterful Occitan dialect explore every aspect of rural life, from love and loss to the landscape and everyday tasks like cheesemaking or cow-herding. They range in tone from playful, tongue-in-cheek comedy to quiet tragedy. The orchestrations vary dramatically in response—sometimes simple accompaniments, sometimes lush, elaborate textures that take us emphatically from field to concert hall. The most famous is “Bailero”, a hauntingly beautiful shepherds’ song, sun-warmed and wistful.