Song actually functions as a kind of newspaper, full of information and commentary on current events.
Click play to listen. Recorded on November 1, 2008.
Robert Darnton, the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard and director of the University Library, is one of the world’s leading intellectual and cultural historians.
Recognized as an expert on 18th-century Enlightenment France, he is also a pioneer in the growing field of the history of the book. For his Festival program, Darnton presents an informative and entertaining cabaret lecture entitled “Street Songs in Paris, 1749,” accompanied by renowned French mezzo-soprano Hélène Delavault. He discusses, and she demonstrates, how citizens of Enlightenment Paris turned not to newspapers but to street songs—popular tunes that were improvised into sung newspapers and modified as the affairs of the ancien régime developed.
This annual lecture recognizes a generous multiyear contribution to the Chicago Humanities Festival by Julie and Roger Baskes.
Image: Harvard University Gazette Online; © Justin Ide/Harvard News Office
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