On Chansons and Jacques Berle by Shmuel Shai

The French chanson is something from another world. It is an entire biographical world, pouring into song the full range of love and hate, loneliness and lust, expectation and disappointment. Everything. But chansons are considered a thing of the past today. Perhaps like the songs of the Land of Israel with us. They are not part of the playlist and contemporary singers no longer sing in this style. It is true that the singer Charles Aznavour still performs, and will even come to Israel soon. But he is already very old. Most singers in this style have already passed away. When Charles Aznavour dies, there will be no new singers of this type, at most, innovations of classic songs and that is all. The contemporary twist that is popular in France is world music arrangements of 20th-century chansons with Eastern and North African inspiration, usually sung by singers who are not originally French.

The chanson lines for his character

The French are crazy about this style now. Originally Chansons They are so-called folk songs that originally developed alongside more “serious” music in France and Belgium since the Middle Ages. They are cheerful and humorous songs. The lyrics appeal to the intellect, while the music is pleasant to the ear, so listeners could enjoy the best of all worlds. The heyday of chansons was during the Renaissance, but they continued to enjoy public sympathy at least until the 1970s, expressing the feelings of the people and combining social protest with popular and catchy music and sad romantic poetry. The well-known chansonniers of the 20th century are Charles Aznavour, Edith Piaf, Georges Mustaki, Yves Montaigne, Georges Bressan, Gilbert Coquet, Leo Perret, Claude Nogareau and others. The greatest and most famous of all – Jacques Berle, was not French but Belgian, but he captured the hearts of the French, who were enchanted by his poems, and were willing to forget this for him.

The chansons of Jacques Berle in Israel

The field also enjoyed great success in Israel, in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, a period when the influence of French culture was at its peak and Israel was fascinated by France as much as France was fascinated by Israel. Jacques Berle, the great chansonnier, even visited Israel in the 1960s, which further increased his and the field's popularity among Israelis. However, it is interesting that most of Berle's performers and translators in Israel, such as Dan Almagor, Naomi Shemer, and Yossi Banai, are natives of the country who have never lived in France and were not truly immersed in French culture.

In Israel, a major contribution to Berl's popularity was made by a 1971 show (when Berl was still alive) called "The World of Jacques Berl," which featured a group of singers - Danny Litani, Riki Gal, Aviva Schwartz and Israel Gurion, who performed Berl's songs in the context of a story. The show resembled the current trend of creating entire musicals based on songs by a well-known band, singer or composer, in the style of "Mary Lou" by Zvika Pick or "Mika Sheli" based on songs by Yair Rosenblum. The show contributed greatly to strengthening sympathy for Berl. Yossi Banai staged a show and released a record called "If We Know How to Love," based on Berl's poem, and became famous for performing many of his poems translated by Ehud Manor and others. (Incidentally, the Beersheba Theater is currently staging a show of the same name with Berl's poems.)

The Dudaim also performed Berl's songs, Corinne Elal performed "The Port in Amsterdam," and even today, artists in Israel occasionally return to Berl. The writer Ran Yagil is a huge fan of Jacques Berl and even wrote the only book about him in Hebrew, a book that is also the only Hebrew novel of any kind that deals with a foreign singer. In 1998, Yagil published, after extensive research, the biographical novella "Jacques." In the book, Yagil describes in several dozen pages various stages in the singer's life, from his childhood to his death, in the first person, a kind of monologue by Berl based on a real one-and-a-half-hour monologue that Berl delivered, for the first and last time in his life, in his last appearance on stage, in 1967. Yagil even dramatized the book and it was staged as a play starring Gil Alon. The book first highlighted Yagil's tendency to present personalities from the past and events from their lives in a very empathetic way. For lovers of Jacques Brel, this is a must-read book.

Jacques Berle claimed back in 1970 that chanson would die with him and Aznavour. And indeed, since Berle's death, there have been no more new chansons. There is rock music, but as far as I know, chanson, in which the word is more important than the melody, no longer exists. In modern song culture, the music has become much stronger at the expense of the word. Today, there are simpler texts performed by bands, but overall, the word is less important than the music today, whereas in chanson the word has always been more important.

Want to hear more about Jacques Brel and other chansonniers?

Come hear Shmuel Shai in his lecture “From Jacques Berle and Edith Piaf to Yossi Banai.” Hila Komm from the Francophile community will sing several songs. The performance will be held at the municipal library in the community center in Kiryat Ono on May 1.5.2017, XNUMX.