Sur de Pont d'Avignon...
OME .months ago I recorded in these columns an unexpectedly successfu! attempt to express Shakespeare’s "Sigh No More, Ladies," in the idiom of 20th Century popular music. A somewhat similar experiment has now been made by somebody on the French folk-song "The Bridge of Avignon," and the result is an interesting commentary on the methods by which our dance bands put their numbers together. The music for folk dance, being associated with a far more rigid and elaborate scheme of movement and gesture, possesses a definite pattern, which moves through repetition towards a climax which is part of the structure. Not so the 20th Century, as you may find from comparing these two versions; here the aim is solely to select and emphasise certain phrases, without any very definite relation-to one another, and simply to repeat them with variations and. improvisation, until an entirely stereotyped climax serves merely as a place at which to stop. The words are similarly treated, and a furthér difference exists in the words themselves. . The French original dealt with communal song and dance and used general and impersonal terms-‘"l’on y danse," "all dance there," but the translation follows the’ set pattern of the modern, personal, episodic and sentimental-"we were dancing, we were dancing, dancing till the night, was gone." It was an excellent comparative study.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 359, 10 May 1946, Page 15
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224Sur de Pont d'Avignon... New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 359, 10 May 1946, Page 15
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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