A Question About A Chanson By Cesar Franck

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were the poem La Procession by Auguste Briseau and the music setting of that poem by Cesar Franck written for the feast of Corpus Christi? I recently found this song in a French Art Song anthology, and my voice teacher and I wanted to know more about it. It is a very beautiful song. I would like to know more about the context for it and the poem.
 
I looked through the table of contents in the online two-volume collected works of Auguste Brizeux, but the title La Procession doesn’t appear there. Do you think it’s possible that César Franck picked out an excerpt from a longer poem and set it to music, giving it a new title?

 
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Good question ! Brizeux was from Brittany, not very far from where I grew up. In Brittany, processions did (and still do, to a certain extent) abound. I could very well be mistaken, but I’m not aware that any of them except the Fête-Dieu (Corpus Christi) involves processing with the Blessed Sacrament. So I’d say a tentative yes.

Here’s a link to the French text and it’s translation:

http://www.melodietreasury.com/translations/song57_La procession.html

And a link to a video of last year’s procession in a Breton village:

https://www.ouest-france.fr/bretagn...ree-dans-la-tradition-aux-sept-saints-5803746

It drew the medias’ attention because it’s one of the last places where the path of the procession is still strewn with flower petals.
 
In the Favorite French Songs anthology that I have the name of the poet is given as Charles Brizeaux (maybe a shorter version of his name?). Also it is possible that the poem is from a larger work.
 
I think it must be Auguste Brizeux, the name that appears in the Wikipedia page I linked to. You’re probably right about this ten-line lyric being a snippet from a longer poem. However, his complete works run to several hundred pages. There’s an earlier two-volume edition and a later four-volume edition. It’ll take quite a lot of hunting. If you switch to the French Wikipedia page, you can click on links to both editions at the Gallica website. You’ll find the links about three-quarters of the way down, under the heading Éditions posthumes. I only looked at the table of contents in each volume, which in French books always comes at the end.

 
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I found some more information about CH Brizeaux, Brizeux, Ch. (Charles) | Chateaubriand, François-René, vicomte de, 1768-1848, but now I can’t find out whether he wrote the poem or the other poet. On the original music score the name is CH. Brizeaux. It seems that the poem has been attributed to Auguste Brizeaux. This is the most confusing art song I have probably ever done research on.
 
This Youtube recording of “La Procession” , sung by Bruno Laplante, clearly names Auguste Brizeux as the author:

 
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Thank you very much. That was very helpful. I noticed that La Procession comes after the one about a First Communion, which makes the context more obvious; referring directly to the monstrance and being carried by the priests in procession, etc. I still do not know what the CH before Brizeaux’s name means, however, I did find that Franck dedicated the song to a Madame Charlotte Danner.
Thank you for your help.
 
P.S.
Did Cesar Franck compose an arrangement of Panis Angelicus with the “Te Trina Deitas” as the second verse or was that arrangement done by someone else? I have only recently become familiar with this verse.
 
Franck’s Messe à trois voix (Mass for Three Voices), Op. 12, was first performed in 1860 and in a revised version in 1872. Only the later version includes the Panis Angelicus, as the fifth movement. As far as I can tell from what I found on the internet, without actually looking at a score, this movement, as originally scored by Franck, includes both stanzas:

Panis angelicus
fit panis hominum;
dat panis caelicus
figuris terminum;
O res mirabilis:
manducat Dominum
pauper, servus et humilis.

Te, trina Deitas
unaque, poscimus:
sic nos tu visita,
sicut te colimus;
per tuas semitas
duc nos quo tendimus,
ad lucem quam inhabitas.

To make sure, however, you would have to get hold of the full score of the Messe à trois voix, in the 1872 version. I hope this helps.
 
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