Clark McAlister

Bergerettes is a sinfonietta in three connected sections built on two French folksongs. The first is Eho! Eho! a Burgundian folksong from a collection prepared by Emmanuel Chabrier. The second is a brunette (or bergerette), one of a number of similar songs popular in the eighteenth-century (Paris especially) among a class of people who enjoyed pretending they were shepherds - without of course having the slightest idea of the hardships that being a shepherd involves. Brunettes (or Bergerettes) were more like pop songs of the time rather than folksongs as such.

The first section introduces the Burgundian song before playing it with a modified (from duple to triple meter) version of the brunette. The tune takes on a very different character in triple time, as though it were a pastorale. The second section explores the Burgundian song at some length and the final section is a romp on the brunette in its original meter.

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