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"Au clair de la lune" (French pronunciation:[oklɛʁdəlalyn(ə)],[1]lit. 'By the Light of the Moon') is a Frenchfolk song of the 18th century. Its composer and lyricist are unknown. Its simplemelody (Playⓘ) is commonly taught to beginners learning an instrument. In the history of sound recording, it has the distinction of being thefirst ever recorded music (1860).
The song appears as early as 1820 inLes Voitures Verseés, with only the first verse. Four verses were later re-published in the 1858 compilationChants et Chansons populaires de la France.[2]
In the 1870 compilationChansons et Rondes Enfantines, only the first two verses of the original four were retained.[3]
"Au clair de la lune, | "By the light of the moon, |
Some sources report that "plume" (pen) was originally "lume" (an old word for "light" or "lamp"), which makes more sense of the song’s contextual framework.[4][5] Much of the lyrics have sexual innuendos.[6]
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French composerFerdinand Hérold wrote a set of variations for piano solo in E-flat major (1820).[7]
Muzio Clementi's Op 48 (1821) is afantasia on the tune.[8]
On 9 April 1860,Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville recorded himself singing the beginning of "Au clair de la lune"[10][11][12] on aphonautograph, making it the earliest recognizable record of the human voice and the earliest recognizable record of music.[13][10] In 2008, the recording was digitally converted to sound by researchers at theLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The American-born Brazilian/French composerCharles-Lucien Lambert wrote a set of variations on the tune (ca 1860)
Claude Debussy, composer of the similarly named "Clair de lune" from hisSuite bergamasque, uses "Au clair de la lune" as the basis of his song "Pierrot" (Pantomime, L. 31) (1882)[14] fromQuatre Chansons de Jeunesse.
19th-century French composerCamille Saint-Saëns quoted the first few notes of the tune in the section "The Fossils", part of his suiteThe Carnival of the Animals (1886)
A set of variations on the tune appears inBoieldieu's operaLes voitures versees (1908)
Erik Satie quoted this song in the section "Le flirt" (No. 19) of his 1914 piano collectionSports et divertissements.[15]
In 1926,Samuel Barber rewrote "H-35: Au Claire de la Lune: A Modern Setting of an old folk tune" while studying at theCurtis Institute of Music.[16]
In 1928,Marc Blitzstein orchestrated "Variations sur 'Au Claire de la Lune'."[17]
In 1955, Swiss composerFrank Martin wrote a setting of Au clair de la lune for one of his children to practice octaves (Primo part). It consists of three variations provided by the Secondo part.
In 1964, French pop singerFrance Gall recorded a version of this song, with altered lyrics to make it a love song.[18]
In 2008, composerFred Momotenko composed an eponymous tribute score for 4-partvocal ensemble and surround audio.[citation needed]
In the 1804 painting and sculpting exposition,Pierre-Auguste Vafflard presented a painting depictingEdward Young burying his daughter by night. An anonymous critic commented[citation needed] on the monochromatic nature of that painting with the lyrics:
Au clair de la lune | By the light of the moon |
The "Story of my Friend Peterkin and the Moon" inThe Ladies Pocket Magazine (1835) mentions the song several times and ends:
Indeed, what must have been the chagrin and despair of this same Jaurat, when he heard sung every night by all the little boys of Paris, that song of "Au clair de la lune", every verse of which was a remembrance of happiness to Cresson, and a reproach of cruelty to friend Peterkin, who would not open his door to his neighbor, when he requested this slight service.[19]
In his 1952 memoirWitness,Whittaker Chambers reminisced:
In my earliest recollections of her, my mother is sitting in the lamplight, in a Windsor rocking chair, in front of the parlor stove. She is holding my brother on her lap. It is bed time and, in a thin sweet voice, she is singing him into drowsiness. I am on the floor, as usual among the chair legs, and I crawl behind my mother's chair because I do not like the song she is singing and do not want her to see what it does to me. She sings: "Au clair de la lune; Mon ami, Pierrot; Prête-moi ta plume; Pour écrire un mot."
Then the vowels darken ominously. My mother's voice deepens dramatically, as if she were singing in a theater. This was the part of the song I disliked most, not only because I knew that it was sad, but because my mother was deliberately (and rather unfairly, I thought) making it sadder: "Ma chandelle est morte; Je n'ai plus de feu; Ouvre-moi la porte; Pour l'amour de Dieu."
I knew, from an earlier explanation, that the song was about somebody (a little girl, I thought) who was cold because her candle and fire had gone out. She went to somebody else (a little boy, I thought) and asked him to help her for God's sake. He said no. It seemed a perfectly pointless cruelty to me.[20]
In their 1957 playBad Seed: A Play in Two Acts,Maxwell Anderson andWilliam March write: "A few days later, in the same apartment. The living-room is empty: Rhoda can be seen practicing 'Au Clair de la Lune' on the piano in the den."[21]In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novelTender is the Night, Dick and Nicole Diver's children sing the first verse at the request of the film producer Earl Brady.
The song is featured in the story "For the God of Love, For the Love of God" inLauren Groff's 2018 collectionFlorida, and the story takes its title from the lyrics.
Here is an example of another thing that happens to French. "Au Clair de la Lune" was originallyAu clair de Ia lune, / Mon ami Pierrot, / Prête-moi ta lume ... But when the wordlume faded out of the language and "was no longer understood", "lend me your light" became "lend me your pen", and "mon ami Pierrot" was no longer the moon itself.
'Au clair de la lune.' Famous French song. The lineprête-moi ta plume "lend me your pen", is a modern substitute for ...ta lume "... light", which came into use when the old wordlume was no longer understood.
Au Clair de la Lune.
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