This is a Breton popular song which appeared in “Missa Gallica” by Bernard Lallement (ref. ACJ 19 0017). The composer wanted to reproduce in this song a modal and rather rough atmosphere. He wanted to “give an ancient era sensation and the feeling of the Breton fog which usually falls on the moors in the evening. I used a reversible counterpoint and paired accompanying voice parts, as organum composer used to do in middle ages.” There are cantus firmus (melody), links between fourth and fifth, sometimes up, sometimes down, that’s why there is a blank fourth at the end of the second verse, which is the reversed version of the two others’ fifth. We draw attention on the modal equivalence between up D (Aeolian mode) and D mode at the end of the verse. It sure will seduce you. The accompaniment of “ou” should be quite distant (some impressionist parts with medieval devices). Bruno Gousset was born in 1958. He began to compose at 11. He studied musicology at Sorbonne University and also learned how to play the piano with Florencia Raitzin. Then, he accompanied choirs (Choeur de l’Orchestre in Paris, Cologne, Chapelle Royale, but also Choeurs de Radio-France, the Chorale Franco-Allemande de Paris, etc.) He was a clinician from 1987 to 2000 in Théâtre du Châtelet and assistant in conducting lessons at École Normale de Paris composing at the same time.
(Translated from French)
