1.Jou l'Pount D'o Mirabel

This song, "At Mirabel Bridge," is a fascinating combination of the sophisticated and the simple. Its long vocal lines, without much tonal variation, is strongly evocative of the Arabic influences on Auvergne music. Canteloube supports these lines with a flowing instrumental accompaniment that conveys the impression of the slowly flowing water, and, with its light tonal colors, remains largely as background for the vocal line.

The song is one of the longest of the Auvergne songs, but the text is one of the shortest. It translates as "At Mirabel Bridge, Catarina was washing. Three armed cavaliers came by. At Mirabel Bridge, Catarina was weeping." The theme of gentlemen or soldiers and peasant or servant girls is a common one in the Auvergne songs, and usually the story ends with the girl outwitting the soldier or gentleman, making this song somewhat unusual.

These ambiguous lyrics and the sparseness, almost minimalism, of the vocal and instrumental parts create a challenge for the perfomers and for the audience to interpret, but when effectively done, is one of the most powerful and moving of the Auvergne songs.

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2.Oï Ayaï

This song from the Auvergne region, arranged and orchestrated by Canteloube, has many of the patterns of a childrens' game song—strong repetition, silly story line, and a bouncy, dance-like rhythm. However, the song provides challenges for an interpreter, in creating and sustaining characterization.

The first verse opens with Morgot lamenting, "Oh, dear, dear, I don't have a hat!" Pierrou goes to the fair, buys her a hit, brings it to her, and pleads with her to get up, it's morning! In the second verse, she gets a petticoat out of this arrangement, and in the third, a chemise. Each verse repeats her "Oh, dear, dear" lament and Pierrou goes to the fair, Pierrou buys her a whatever, Pierrou brings it back, Pierrou gives it to her, and pleads with her to get up.

In the last verse, she realizes she's cold, gets up, puts on the chemise, the petticoat, her bodice, her kerchief, her panties, and the hat, and the song ends with a playful bang on the percussion instruments.

Morgot's lines when she sings about not having whatever garment she's planning to get out of Pierrou, are slow and langorous, the narrator's lines are brisk and quick, and Pierrou's are appropriately plaintive, providing many interpretive possibilities for the singer.

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4.Chut, Chut

This song is, in words and music, very similar to English broadside ballads,

19th century reworkings of old folk songs. The tone is coy and somewhat

suggestive, and the refrain "Chut, chut, " "Sssh, sssh, " is clearly meant to

indicate the somewhat clandestine, though basically innocent, nature of the

lover's meetings. This is one of the songs that shows the most western

European influence.

The girl sings that her father has put her to work, to watch the cows. She

ends the verse with "Sssh, shhh, don't talk, don't make noise!" The reason

for this refrain becomes increasingly clear as in the second verse, she

sings that her sweetheart has joined her, in the third verse that she didn't

do much work, but did get thoroughly kissed, and in the last verse, that there

are girls more finely dressed and coiffed, but she is quite finely kissed.

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5.Pastorale

Not to be confused with the similarly titled Pastourelle from this cycle, Pastorale is a lushly orchestrated nature piece full of shimmering string figures and woodwind and piano swirls. In contrast, the melodic line is intentionally monotonous, suggesting two people calling to each other across a stream or small body of water. The wider-ranging settings of the nonsense syllables "Baïlèro, lèro, lèro" serve as ecstatic little rhapsodies after every few static lines. Shorn of that ornamentation, the lyrics will give animal rights proponents a poor impression of shepherds in the Auvergne:



Shepherd, across the water!

Did you see the hare go harvesting,

The sickle between his front paws,

The whetstone between his rear paws,

The brioche on his back, with the key hanging?



"I did more than see him go;

I caught him."



Shepherd across the water!

Hey, what did you do with the skin?

What did you do with the ears?

And what did you do with the tail?

Say, what did you do with all that?



"From the skin I made a coat!

From the ears I made a pair of gloves!

And from the tail a trumpet!

If you wish to buy them, I'll bring them to you!"

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6.Lou Coucut

The extroverted and comic conclusion to Canteloube's fourth set of Songs of the Auvergne is Lou Coucut (The Cuckoo). The text has its nonsensical moments ("there are none more beautiful than the cuckoo that sings, than my cuckoo, than your cuckoo, than anybody's cuckoo," repeated a few times each verse), and of course Canteloube makes soloists throughout the orchestra bounce the two-note cuckoo motif around. The singer has an earthy, breathy interjection near the end of each verse, reminding us that this is a folk song, and Canteloube makes good use of a small brass complement around the words "if all the cuckoos chose to wear bells, they would sound like five hundred trumpets." It's designed to make an audience chuckle, even if the text's Auvergnat dialect is incomprehensible to most people.

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