The Sound, Image, Text symposium, held from August 25th to 26th 2023 in Canberra, brought together a range of art historians, musicologists and literary scholars to speak on Jean-Benjamin de Laborde’s long-forgotten illustrated songbook Choix de Chansons (1773) and other related topics. Here, you can browse the recordings of these lectures. Associate Professor Erin Helyard Music […]
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Sound, Image, Text : Exhibition
Sound, Image, Text was an exhibition of prints from a 19th century edition of Jean Benjamin de Laborde’s illustrated songbook Choix de Chansons (1773), held in the Australian National University Gallery’s Project Space in August 2023. The exhibition was curated by Poppy Thomson, who used this digital publication to inform her selection of the prints. […]
Music for the Dauphine: Laborde’s Choix de Chansons
This recital was the final event of the Sound, Image, Text symposium, hosted by the Centre for Art History and Theory in the ANU School of Art and Design in August 2023. Below you can view an edited recording of the concert, a concert programme and a transcript of the various introductions to the songs being played. […]
Marie-Charlotte Vendôme, François Moria and Music Engraving in the Choix de Chansons
One of the remarkable aesthetic features of the Choix de Chansons was that it was entirely engraved, meaning that no moveable type was used. The musical notation, words and images were all created by burin engravers.1 In the case of the text and music, this was achieved by artisans in the very specialized metier of […]
Music and Music-making in Laborde’s Chansons pittoresques
One of the most remarkable publications of the later eighteenth century is the four-volume Choix de chansons compiled by Jean-Benjamin de Laborde (1734–1794), fermier général and premier valet du chambre to Louis XV.1 Published in 1773 and dedicated to the Dauphine, Marie Antoinette, this deluxe set is a multi-authored collection of music, text, and image. […]
Chansons Pittoresque: The Subscription Prospectus for Choix de Chansons
In June 1772, Jean-Benjamin de Laborde published a prospectus announcing ‘an absolutely new kind’ of publication of what he called chansons pittoresque [picturesque songs]. While there seemed to be new collections of songs published all the time, he wrote, Laborde’s Choix de Chansons would differ by presenting a combination of image, music, and text. This […]