The French composer Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) wrote music in many genres, including opera and operetta, piano, orchestral music, and songs with piano accompaniment. The songs cover most of his creative years, from the early 1860s to 1890, when the illness which would kill him prevented much composition. He came late to music as a profession, but – although being an exceptional pianist – he had no trappings of a formal training: no conservatoire studies, no Prix de Rome, "none of the conventional badges of French academic musicians, by whom he was regarded as an amateur" (in the best sense).
There are forty-three published songs by Chabrier. He began composing these "mélodies" when he was about twenty-one; the first nine were written between 1862 and 1866. Chabrier never set any verse by his friend Verlaine (although they did collaborate on two opéras-bouffes "Fisch-Ton-Kan" and "Vaucochard et fils Ier"), but among the better-known poets whose verse Chabrier did set in these early songs were Théodore de Banville ("Lied") and Alfred de Musset ("Adieux à Suzon"). Chabrier gave up his job at the Ministry of the Interior in 1880; as a full-time composer he set texts by Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Catulle Mendès, Edmond Rostand and his wife Rosemonde Gérard, as well as lesser-known poets, and these songs were often intended for notable singers, such as Lucien Fugère, Émile Engel, Jeanne Granier, Ernest Van Dyck and Paul Lhérie. ;br ;
In a 1891 letter to Madame Colonne, wife of the famous conductor, Chabrier wrote "I'm not a natural writer of romances, which is unfortunate, because the song, agreeably warbled in salons is, at the present time, the only way for a French composer to more or less pay the rent." None of his songs were a commercial success.
Introduction.
While not on the level of his contemporaries Fauré and Duparc, some of Chabrier's songs are "unique in the nineteenth century for their wit and satirical humour". Examples such as the "Villanelle des petits canards", the "Ballade des gros dindons", and the "Pastorale des cochons roses" (from the "Six mélodies" of 1890) "anticipated by some years the twentieth-century reaction against Romantic song".
Ravel claimed that "it is impossible to hear two of his chords without attributing them at once to him, and to him alone". French composer Henri Barraud asserted that he was "the most gifted inventor of unimagined harmonies, of rare combinations of timbres, the most vigorous colourist and the most straightforward melodist".
Enoch, his publisher, tried to get Chabrier to simplify what they judged to be complex piano parts which would discourage amateurs (and thus reduce sales); despite objections from the composer an edition with easy accompaniments was issued by them. 
All are strophic songs, but the rhythm is usually cleverly modified in each stanza to suit the prosody of the literary text. They require, together with perfect precision, a supple, elegant style of interpretation, slightly whimsical; as remarked by Poulenc, a "laisser-aller contrôlé".
The singer Claire Croiza (1882-1946) argued that in Chabrier's mélodies there is "a male quality that a woman singer can never give entirely. It must be a man who drinks well and eats well". She continued, "There is a basic roundness, and frankness. Fugère knew how to sing Chabrier. He brought to it his own roundness, his joviality." The pianist and scholar Graham Johnson comments in relation to several of the songs that the demands on the singer, particularly in range of expression, can be extreme, for example "Ivresses!". In his book on the composer, his spiritual descendant, Francis Poulenc, contends that the difficulty for many singers – amateur and professional – is that Chabrier's songs fall half-way between the concert platform and the stage. He cites Jane Bathori, Roger Bourdin and Pierre Bernac as singers of his time who sought to keep their spirit alive in performance.
A complete edition of the 25 original songs (excluding the regional folk song arrangements), edited and with an introduction by Roger Delage, was published in 1995 (Heugel, Paris), including two which had never before been published, "Le Pas d'armes du roi Jean" and "Ivresses".
Early songs.
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Couplets de Mariette – « Son absence me désespère » (Mariette's song : "His absence makes me despair") (1862) – anon. Mariette laments the loss of her partner of 15 years. Johnson sees a precursor of the "Chanson de l'alouette" from Act 1 of "Le Roi malgré lui". Darius Milhaud inserted the song, with new words by René Chalupt, into a production of "Une éducation manquée" for Diaghilev in Monte Carlo in 1924. ;br ;
 ;br ;L'Enfant – « L'enfant est roi parmi nous » ("The child rules us as a king") (1862) – words by Victor de Laprade (from Idylles héroïques, 1855). Parents welcome the arrival of a baby, and an impending exacting presence in the home. ;br ; 
 ;br ;Ronde gauloise – « J'ai vu la fille du meunier » ("I saw the miller's daughter") (1862) – anon. The song evokes a bourrée folk song as a young man gives voice to his love. ;br ; 
 ;br ;Le Sentier sombre – « Il est un sentier sombre au fond de nos vallées » ("There's a shady path down in the valley") (1862) – anon. A country lad recalls his first love. ;br ; 
 ;br ;Lied – « Avec ces traits harmonieux » ("with these harmonious features") (1862) – words by Théodore de Banville ('Inviolata' from "Améthystes", 1862). Another love song, where the performers are instructed to sing "con passione". ;br ; 
 ;br ;Chants d'oiseaux – « Quand nous chantons nos amours » (Bird songs :"When we sing about our love") (1862) – words by Victor de Laprade (in the Livre troisième of "Rose Mystica" from "Idylles héroïques", 1855). Johnson regards it as "one of Chabrier's earliest masterpieces – a perfect example of his musical conjuring". Predating the barnyard songs, in this second Laprade setting, a bird in a tree comments on the vicissitudes of human love. ;br ;
 ;br ;Sérénade – « La plus charmante femme » ("The most charming woman") (1862) – words by the painter, sculptor and poet Auguste de Châtillon (from "À la Grand'Pinte", 1860). A man sings of his obsessive love. ;br ; 
 ;br ;Adieux à Suzon (1862) – words by Alfred de Musset (1862; later set by Bizet in 1866). A man's vigorous farewell to his love which ends in "renunciation and gentle melancholy" (Johnson). ;br ; Musicologist Winton Dean describes Bizet's version as a "delightful setting of a half-tender, half-mocking love poem", but Delage considers that Chabrier's setting, with its triple rhythm, sly chromaticism in the bass line, all part of an "allegro risoluto ed appassionato" captures better the mood of the poet. ;br ;
 ;br ;Ah! petit démon (« Ha, little devil ») (1862) – words by Auguste de Châtillon (from "À la Grand'Pinte", 1860). The second Châtillon setting concerns the 'little devil' who comes to steal the singer's grapes at midnight.
The developing songwriter.
Le pas d'armes du roi Jean – « Ça! qu'on selle » ("Right, saddle-up") (1866) – words by Victor Hugo (Ballade XII from Odes et Ballades, 1826). ;br ;
The song is about a page who falls in a tournament. The young Saint-Saëns set fourteen of Hugo's 32 verses in 1852; Chabrier set eight. "One must admire Saint-Saëns's skill in making a long and effective piece out of unpromising material [...] how much better Chabrier captures, right from the start, the spirit of the festive joust with music which rattles jovially between the hands", Johnson comments. Chabrier regularly sang this song at the Marquise de Ricard's Parnassian salon. It evokes the galop of a horse and plays on ambivalence between modal and tonal harmony, creating new and strange effects. ;br ;
 ;br ;Ivresses! Grande Valse – « Viens! je veux les caresses » ("Come, I want your caresses") (1869) – words by Léon Labarre. ;br ;
The song is about uncontrollable physical love with wild and impassioned pleas for wine and kisses; Delage describes the words of this song as "improbable" (« invraisemblables ») but Chabrier manages through two gay and rhythmic waltzes to evoke the world of the café-concert. The music reappears subsequently in his Suite de valses of 1872. After a vivace introduction, interrupted by a mysterious andante, the first waltz mimes musically an ardent, unbuttoned love. The second waltz 'espress. Ed appassionato' starts after a short recitative like passage ; the first waltz returns with new harmonies. Notes on the score (cymbal, timpani, violins) indicate that Chabrier had an orchestration in mind. Steven Huebner notes that Chabrier's melodies (instrumental and vocal) are frequently combined with chromatic decoration, citing as an example 'Ivresses'. ;br ;
 ;br ;L'invitation au voyage (1870) – « Mon enfant, ma sœur, songe à la douceur d'aller là-bas » (Call to expedition : "My child, sister, think how sweet to go over there") words by Charles Baudelaire (from Les Fleurs du mal, 1855, 1857), set at the same time by Duparc (two verses only). This is about lovers escaping to a place of luxury, calm and sensuality. Chabrier's longest song contains an obbligato part for bassoon. Chabrier savoured the richness of full 9th harmonics; the phrase "d'aller là-bas vivre ensemble" in this song is "set to a succession of 9th chords with root movement by a 5th. The whole song is a study in such harmonies where Chabrier pays particular attention to the colour of the 9th in different registers of the keyboard and even the voice". ;br ;
 ;br ;Sérénade de Ruy Blas – « À quoi bon entendre les oiseaux des bois ? » ("Why listen to the birds from the woods" – the most tender bird sings in your voice...) (1873, published in 1913) words by Victor Hugo (from Act II of "Ruy Blas", 1838; off-stage voices of laundrywomen). Set in 17th century Spain; the music follows the text closely. It features a lively ritournelle between the verses and a close of softness and mystery, briefly and unexpectedly turning to the sub-dominant, very typical of the composer. A rich and lavish accompaniment sets out it apart from the typical French romance, ranging – with embellishments, shades of modal hue and chromaticism – across the whole keyboard. Composed in the same year as Chabrier's ground-breaking Impromptu for piano, Roy Howat writes that it could easily pass for Wolf.
Full-time composer.
Sommation irrespectueuse – « Rire, étant si jolie, c'est mal » (Disrespectful address : "Laughter, being so pretty, is wrong") (1880) – words by Victor Hugo (Sommation irrespectueuse, VIII. of L'éternel petit roman, VI. from "Les Chansons des Rues et des Bois", 1865). This dark song was composed in August 1880 when the Chabriers were on holiday at Saint-Pair-sur-Mer; another poem from the same Hugo collection at the same time inspired Idylle, the sixth Pièces pittoresques. The song was premiered at the Société Nationale de Musique on 9 April 1881 by Léon Melchissédec, like Chabrier from Auvergne. Modal colouration is present again, though Delage contends that Chabrier's use of modes differs from his younger friend Fauré, in coming from "popular music imbibed in childhood, rather than through formal study of 16th century music". Howat remarks that this song, with echoes of Mussorgsky (specifically "In the corner", no.2 from The Nursery), is probably the earliest example of the assimilation of contemporary Russian musical syntax into French music, and which Chabrier would have been exposed to only via scores, as Mussorgsky's songs were not heard in Paris until the mid 1890s. Johnson adds that the verses 16 to 18 are "set to some of the most frantic music in all Chabrier". ;br ; In the film "Rien de personnel" (2009, Gokalp) "Sommation Irrespectueuse" appears in each segment, sung by Pascal Greggory as Muller. ;br ;
 ;br ;Credo d'amour – « Je crois aux choses éternelles » (Love creed : "I believe in things eternal") (1883) – words by Armand Silvestre ('Credo' from "La chanson des heures", 1878). A few years previously Chabrier had begun work with Silvestre on "Le Sabbat", a two-act opéra comique, which was not completed. The words reflect the composer's regular praise of the female sex. It is dedicated to Mme Enoch, wife of one of his publishers. ;br ;
 ;br ;"España" – « À Séville, séjour où les roses » ("In Seville, where the roses