Charles Aznavour receives the 2016 Nikos Gatsos Prize2 reading minutes

A look at the news - Jonas Follonier

This week, Charles Aznavour was awarded the 2016 Nikos Gatsos prize for songwriters. It has to be said that the ninety-two-year-old singer has written over eight hundred songs, which is still a very high figure compared to other singer-songwriters. But it's well known that it's not quantity that counts, but quality. And the jury, chaired by singer Nana Mouskouri, was right: Aznavour's songs demonstrate a remarkable talent for poetic writing and musical sensitivity. Better still, they define a style.

Aznavour's style is first and foremost one of metrical regularity. Many of his songs are composed of classic French verse, namely alexandrines and octosyllables, arranged here and there to suit the music. Aznavour, already in his generation, is one of the few to show such poetic rigor. It is to be commended, first and foremost for its own sake, but also for the pleasure it brings to listen to songs such as The toreador, La mamma or the recent With a touch of nostalgia.

This sublime track from 2015 leads us to a second characteristic of the Aznavourian style: the art of magnifying the themes of nostalgia, melancholy, time and love. These eternal artistic drivers, obviously linked, are addressed from album to album in Charles Aznavour's repertoire. To recognize his genius is to wonder how it is possible to be moved again and again by the same subjects: a lost love, a childhood memory or a reflection on the passage of time.

Finally, if we were to give a third hallmark of Aznavour's own register, we could mention in a general way the subordination of instrumentation to texts. The Word - and we could even write «the Word», given the Christian dimension of his work - is the most important element in Aznavour's music. primordial in the songs of this master of French chanson. At once primary and essential, he demonstrates, as he often does, that it is in the heart of words that the ills of the heart are to be found. And then it's up to the music to show their greatness.

Write to the author : jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Listen to With a touch of nostalgia :