Students of musicology smile or laugh when they hear the onomatopoeic effects of Clément Janequin‘s Le Chant des oyseaulx.

Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love calls you./ On this first day of May,/ The birds will make you marvel/. To lift yourself from dismay,/ Unclog your ears./ And fa la la la la (etc…)/ You will be moved to joy,/ For the season is good.

You will hear, I advise you,/ A sweet music/ That the royal blackbird will sing/ In a pure voice./ Ti, ti, pi-ti (etc…)/ To laugh and rejoice is my device, Each with abandon.

Nightingale of the pretty woods,/ Whose voice resounds,/ So you don’t become bored,/ Your throat jabbers away:/ Frian, frian (etc…)/ Flee, regrets, tears and worries,/ For the season commands it.

Turn around, master cuckoo/  Get out of our company./  Each of us gives you a ‘bye-bye’/  For you are nothing but a traitor./  Cuckoo, cuckoo (etc…) / Treacherously in others’ nests,/  You lay without being called./  Awake, sleepy hearts,/ The god of love is calling you.

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There are several versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx.  I used the lyrics provided by l’Ensemble Clément Janequin on YouTube.  I believe our version has four stanzas.  In order to see various versions of Le Chant des oyseaulx, simply click on lyrics.* 

* Retrieved from “http://www1.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Le_Chant_des_Oiseaux_(Cl%C3%A9ment_Janequin)&oldid=378489“

Clément Janequin

Clément Janequin (c. 1485  – 1558) was born in Châtellerault, near Poitiers, and was a French composer of the Renaissance.  His music is programmatic in that it has an extra-musical narrative, such as the singing of birds.  Moreover, as did most composers of his era, his main musical challenge was polyphony, mixing voices.  At times, Le Chant des oyseaulx sounds like a canon and is a canon.

By and large, Janequin held positions that earned him a meagre income, a matter he mentioned in his will.  He was a clerk to Lancelot du Fau the future Bishop of Luçon until the bishop’s death in 1523.  He then held a similar position with the Bishop of Bordeaux.  During that period of his life, he also became a priest.  Moreover, he held positions in Anjou.

His life style improved after he met the Jean de Guise and Charles de Ronsard, Pierre de Ronsard‘s brother.  Pierre de Ronsard (11 September 1524 – 28 December 1585), the “Prince of Poets,” was the leader of an infomal académie known as La Pléiade, named after the Alexandrian Pleiad, 3rd century BC.

Clément Janequin was a very prolific songwriter.  Guise and Ronsard helped him secure a position as curate at Unverre, near Chartres.  At that point, he started to live in Paris and his chansons were extremely popular.  In fact, Pierre Attaingnant[i]  (c. 1494 – late 1551 or 1552), printed five volumes of Janequin’s Chansons.  In Paris, Janequin also became “singer ordinary” of the King’s Chapel and later “composer ordinary.”  Janequin composed very few sacred works.

He is best-known for Le Chant des oyseaulx and La Bataille but also composed love songs, some of which are explicit.  In fact, Le Chant des oyseaulx is a love song.

Micheline Walker©

John James Audubon 1785 – 1851