Michel Legrand's first great song La Valse des Lilas, displayed an individual style of melodic writing which soon became his hallmark.
“ I put a great deal of faith in melody, Nadia Boulanger always said: “ Put whatever you want above and below the melody but, whatever happens, it’s the melody that counts.’ For example, modern music tends to bore me now. It does of course contain innovative rhythmic and contrapuntal devices but, without melody, its lifeblood, it is lifeless and this helps to dehumanize it. For my part, melody is a mistress to whom I’ ll always be faithful.”
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La Valse des Lilas
Michel Legrand
On ne peut pas vivre ainsi que tu le fais
D'un souvenir qui n'est plus qu'un regret
Sans un ami et sans autre secret
Qu'un peu de larmes.
Pour ces quelques pages de mélancolie
Tu as fermé le livre de ta vie
Et tu as cru que tout était fini...
... Mais tous les lilas
Tous les lilas de mai
N'en finiront
N'en finiront jamais
De fair' la fête au coeur des gens qui s'aiment, s'aiment.
Tant que tournera
Que tournera le temps
Jusqu'au dernier
Jusqu'au dernier printemps
Le ciel aura
Le ciel aura vingt ans
Les amoureux en auront tout autant...
Si tu vois les jours se perdre au fond des nuits
Les souvenirs abandonner ta vie
C'est qu'ils ne peuvent rien contre l'oubli...
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La Valse des Lilas
Michel Legrand
We can not live like you do
With a memory that is not one regret
Without a friend and without any secret
A few tears.
For these few pages of melancholy
You closed the book of your life
And you thought it was all over ...
... But all the lilacs
All the lilacs of May
Never finish
Never ultimately finish
The light heart in the heart of hearts of people who love, love.
That will turn
That will turn in time
until the last
Until the last spring
The sky will
The sky will be twenty years
Lovers will have jthe same ...
If you see your days lost in the deep of nights
Your life abandonned to memories
It is that you can do nothing against forgetting
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