Uploaded August 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
Vocals by Aurora Aguilar & Farya Faraji, arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is an arrangement of two different but related folk songs, one in the Piedmontese language, one of the many Romance languages of Italy, closely related to Italian, and the other in French. I grew up familiar with the French version, and would later learn that there exist multiple versions of this same tale in Occitan, Catalan, Piedmontese, and other Romance languages of that area. The Piedmontese and French version, however, share in common a very similar starting melody, which is why I wanted to arrange them together. According to scholar Georges Doncieux, the song's motifs would have Celtic and Scandinavian origins: https://www.persee.fr/doc/roma_0035-8029_1900_num_29_114_5625 Whatever the exact origin of this continuum of related folk songs, they all share in common the same motif of a king dying.
My purposefully uses the overlapping aspects of modern Italian and French folk music, using instruments found in both traditions: a mandolin, accordion, and dulcimer. Some versions of the French song are in duple metre, but I used the version in triple metre to match the Italian one. Interestingly, the triple metre French song shows perfect syllabic and metric correspondence with other royal-themed historical French ballads like "La Fille au Roy Louis," which likely dated to the 1600's, showing at least continuity with earlier centuries, if not roots from that era.
Vocals by Aurora Aguilar & Farya Faraji, arrangement by Farya Faraji. This is an arrangement of two different but related folk songs, one in the Piedmontese language, one of the many Romance languages of Italy, closely related to Italian, and the other in French. I grew up familiar with the French version, and would later learn that there exist multiple versions of this same tale in Occitan, Catalan, Piedmontese, and other Romance languages of that area. The Piedmontese and French version, however, share in common a very similar starting melody, which is why I wanted to arrange them together. According to scholar Georges Doncieux, the song's motifs would have Celtic and Scandinavian origins: https://www.persee.fr/doc/roma_0035-8029_1900_num_29_114_5625 Whatever the exact origin of this continuum of related folk songs, they all share in common the same motif of a king dying.
My purposefully uses the overlapping aspects of modern Italian and French folk music, using instruments found in both traditions: a mandolin, accordion, and dulcimer. Some versions of the French song are in duple metre, but I used the version in triple metre to match the Italian one. Interestingly, the triple metre French song shows perfect syllabic and metric correspondence with other royal-themed historical French ballads like "La Fille au Roy Louis," which likely dated to the 1600's, showing at least continuity with earlier centuries, if not roots from that era.
