Plaisir d'amour

"Plaisir d'amour" (literally "The pleasure of love") is a classical French love song written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816); it took its text from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794), which appears in his novel Célestine.

The song was greatly successful in Martini's version. For example, a young woman, Madame Julie Charles, sang it to the poet Alphonse de Lamartine during his cure at Aix-les-Bains in 1816, and the poet was to recall it 30 years later.^[1]

Hector Berlioz arranged it for orchestra (H134) in 1859.^[2] Louis van Waefelghem arranged the tune for viola d'amore or viola and piano in the 1880s. It has been arranged and performed in various pop music settings.

A version of the melody has been used in Elvis Presley's Can't Help Falling In Love and the 20th century Christian hymn "My God Loves Me"^[3]

Lyrics

Original poem by de Florian

Music by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816)

Lyrics by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794)

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. J'ai tout quitté pour l'ingrate Sylvie, Elle me quitte et prend un autre amant. Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie. "Tant que cette eau coulera doucement vers ce ruisseau qui borde la prairie, je t'aimerai", me répétait Sylvie, l'eau coule encor, elle a changé pourtant. Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment, chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie.

The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, The grief of love lasts a lifetime. I gave up everything for ungrateful Sylvia, She is leaving me for another lover. The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, The grief of love lasts a lifetime. "As long as this water will run gently Towards this brook which borders the meadow, I will love you", Sylvia told me repeatedly. The water still runs, but she has changed. The pleasure of love lasts only a moment, The grief of love lasts a lifetime.

Recordings

Notable classical singers who have recorded Martini's original song include Rosa Ponselle, Victoria de los Ángeles, Tito Schipa, Fritz Wunderlich, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Janet Baker, Inese Galante, Yvonne Kenny, and many others. In 2014, Plácido Domingo recorded the song for his album, Encanto del Mar.

Notable interpretations of modern arrangements of the song include those of Karrin Allyson, Joan Baez, Brigitte Bardot, Vicki Brown, Charlotte Church, Marianne Faithfull, Nana Mouskouri, and The Seekers^[5].

One of the more unusual recordings is by Paul Robeson^[6]. Notable appearances in films include Irene Dunne in Love Affair; Montgomery Clift played the music on the piano and sang the song as well in The Heiress; the song's music is featured in the opening of the 1955 movie We're No Angels; instrumental version appears in 1978 adult film Debbie Does Dallas; Joely Richardson, as Marie Antoinette, sings it in the 2001 film The Affair of the Necklace; "Plaisir d'amour" is sung by an all-female choir in "The Breaking Point", an episode of HBO's 2001 World War II television miniseries Band of Brothers; the 1987 movie The Family by Ettore Scola; the tune is heard repeatedly in the 1977 film March or Die. The melody was used for several songs with new lyrics, including "Can't Help Falling in Love", with Elvis Presley, and "I Want To Live" by Aphrodite's Child. The Jean-Paul-Egide Martini version of this song also appears in the campy 1966 Batman movie, sung by Julie Gregg.

• Yvonne Printemps in 1931
• Rina Ketty in 1939 (with extended lyrics^[7]
• Tino Rossi in 1955
• Bert Kaempfert (instrumental) in 1960
• Joan Baez in 1961
• Marianne Faithfull in 1965
• Nana Mouskouri in 1971 (on Fontana album: A Place in my Heart)
• Nick Drake unused recording for Pink Moon in 1972. Later included as hidden track in Treasury.
• Pierrot Lunaire (band) in 1976
• Mireille Mathieu in 1985 on Les grandes chansons francaises
• Franco Battiato in 1991 on Come un cammello in una grondaia
• Gabriel Yacoub on disque 9 Chansons d'Amore of the multi-volume Anthologie de la Chanson Traditionnelle recorded in 1993-1994, released on EPM both as an individual album and as part of the complete box set.^[8]
• Karrin Allyson in 1999
• Judy Collins on her 2000 album Classic Folk^[9]
• Marie Denise Pelletier in 2000
• Emmylou Harris in 2003 on Stumble into Grace
• Undated: Brigitte Bardot, Judith Durham, Mary Hopkin, Helmut Lotti, Eddy Mitchell, Ivan Rebroff

In literature

In the 1949 film The Heiress, the song is played and sung by Montgomery Clift's character, Morris. The song is woven throughout the score, foreshadowing his betrayal and the title character's lifelong heartbreak.

Hermann Hesse's short story "Chagrin d'Amour" (1908) narrates a fictional origin for this song at a medieval tournament. Hesse has it composed by an obscure troubadour named Marcel, who sings this song to a queen named Herzeloyde to express his hopeless and unrequited love for her. Hesse took the names of the characters from Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival.

At the start of Robert Anderson's play Tea and Sympathy, the main character, Tom Lee, is singing this "plaintive" song referred to as "The Joys of Love".

References

External links

French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Plaisir d’amour

• Plaisir d'amour: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Plaisir d' amour, hundreds of renditions by hundreds of artists, MusicMe.com
• Plaisir d'amour on YouTube, sung by Rina Ketty (1939)
• "Plaisir d'amour" ou petite histoire d'une romance de plus de 200 ans, history, sheet music and MIDI file, by Denis Havard de la Montagne (in French)