(Fr.).
A French drinking-song. The term was used, often coupled with chanson pour danser (dancing-song), particularly from about 1627 to about 1670, in many printed and some manuscript collections of short, simple, strophic, syllabic French songs for one voice with lute accompaniment. Chansons pour boire usually have humorous texts concerned with drinking, and they differ from the later Air à boire only in that songs of the latter type are often for two or more voices. Chansons pour danser, on the other hand, are usually settings of more serious pastoral poems and differ from the contemporary Air de cour in being for only one voice and never in a free rhythmic and poetic structure. The dance-songs often consist of repeated rhythmic patterns in a regular metre, but since many airs de cour and chansons pour boire also do, there is no clearcut distinction between the three types. As many airs and drinking-songs are in the forms ABB, AABB and AABCC as are chansons pour danser.
The Ballard family brought out two sets of Livres de chansons pour danser [dancer] et pour boire, the first in 21 volumes (Paris, 1627–62), the second in seven (Paris, 1663–9). There are individual collections by Bacilly, Jean Boyer, Chancy, Denis Macé, Jean Mangeant, Melinte, Guillaume Michel, Louis de Mollier and André Rosiers. The anthologies Le Parnasse des muses (Paris, 1633), Alphabet de chansons pour dancer et pour boire (Paris, 1646) and Recueil d'ariettes et de chansonnettes de table et à danser (F-Pn Vm7 3639) contain further examples. The two types of chanson practically disappear in name only after 1670, though Ballard republished Bacilly's examples in one volume (Paris, 1699), and some chansons à danser appeared in Brunetes ou petits airs tendres, in three volumes (Paris, 1703–11).
JOHN H. BARON