Lo Fiolaire has, like most of Canteloube's arrangements of folk songs of

the Auvergne region, the theme of pastoral love and courtship. In this

song, the girl sings that when she was little, she guarded the sheep

while she spun. A shepherd helped keep an eye on the sheep, and in payment,

asked for a kiss. Since she is no ingrate, she gave him two.

The song follows the rhythms of a spinning wheel in both the vocal and

the orchestral part, and after every two lines, the performer sings

various nonsense syllables that imitate the sound of the wheel. This

imitation is particularly accurate, as there are little grace notes and

ripples that depict the occasional changes of speed of the wheel, and

also, at the very end, sound like the wheel stopping while the shepherd

receives his payment.

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