Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman

Conductor Notes:

NB: The vocal scores don’t include the piano part.

Composer / Arranger Notes:

Ah vous dirais-je, Maman is the first of three movements of Au féminin pluriel, commissioned by Modulation, a Montréal women’s chamber choir directed by Lucie Roy.

The title preceded the composition and was inspired by a family discussion about French grammar. The expression “au féminin pluriel” refers to the agreement in gender (feminine) and number (plural) often required in French between nouns, adjectives and verbs, but the term also evokes the image of a group of women.

The text of Ah vous dirais-je, Maman combines playground skipping rhymes (comptines) with short utterances typical of young girls. The singers of Modulation provided the utterances through a collective exercise guided by the composer, and the text and rhythm of the comptines came from the six-year old daughter of a chorister. The musical setting of the rhymes is original.

Text:

French