Michel Cardin : Chansons D’Acadie Vol 1, for voice and guitar or theorbo: Bergmann

Michel Cardin

Bergmann Edition: Score only: 32 pages

Here are ten songs out of a set of 20 published by Bergmann (Volume 2 has the other 10)which are from approximately 600 French and Acadian folk songs collected in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia by archivists Anselme Chiasson and Daniel Boudreau between 1942 and 1993.They were then subsequently published in 11 volumes by the two men, but with only the melody and the words, so Michel took a lot of pleasure in harmonising the pieces with a lovely accompaniment which didn’t get in the way too much , but at least gave the musicians a chance to hear the pieces fully arranged Each of the pieces is laid out very simply, so that you get the voice, part then the guitar,( complete with chord symbols in case the player wants something simpler that they could use better), and finally the Theorbo part in lute tablature. Finally after the three staves, you get the entire verses of each song, so that there is no attempt to make verse 2, for example a different accompaniment from verse 1, and so on, you just repeat everything again for however many verses there are in each song.

 They are melodic, as you would expect, and each piece is 2 or 3 pages long at the most.

This is a nice set that will appeal to lots of singers/players, and if you happen to have a Theorbo player handy too, then these will do very nicely too!

Chris Dumigan