Frère Jacques in popular culture
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The song "Frère Jacques" often appears in popular culture.
- A version of the tune appears in the third movement of the Symphony No. 1 by Gustav Mahler. Mahler presents the melody in a minor key instead of a major key, thus giving the piece the character of a funeral march or dirge; however, the mode change to minor might not have been an invention by Mahler, as is often believed, but rather the way this round was sung in the 19th century and early 20th century in Austria.[1][2] Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp argue[3] that Mahler had changed the key to make "Frère Jacques" sound more "Jewish" (Mahler converted to Catholicism from Judaism). Draughon and Knapp claim that the tune was originally sung to mock non-Catholics, such as Protestants or Jews. Mahler himself called the tune by its German name, "Bruder Martin", and made some allusions to the piece being related to a parody in the programs he wrote for the performances.[4] Interpretations similar to this are quite prevalent in academia and in musical circles.[5]
- The French performer known as Le Pétomane entertained live audiences in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with his own unique rendition, according to the BBC.[6]
- Henri Bernstein, a French playwright, wrote a comedic play entitled Frère Jacques (translated as Brother Jacques) with Pierre Véber in 1904.[7][8]
- Mon Frère Jacques is a 1925 French comedic film directed by Marcel Manchez.[9]
- Frère Jacques is a type of semi-soft cow's milk cheese with a mild hazelnut taste, produced by Benedictine monks from the Saint-Benoit-du-lac Abbey in Quebec, Canada.[10]
- Four French singers, brothers André and Georges Bellec, François Soubeyran and Paul Tourenne formed a comedic singing group in 1944 known as Les Frères Jacques, even though none of them were named "Jacques". The group name was a bit of a play on words since a common French expression, "faire le jacques", means to act like a clown. They had successful careers over the next few decades.[11]
- Leonard Bernstein made use of the song to illustrate counterpoint in his television program What Makes Music Symphonic?[12][13] (one of a series of 53 programs, the Young People's Concerts with the New York Philharmonic, combining music and lectures that were televised between 1959 and 1972).
- The french composer Jean-Jacques Perrey composed a version of this song titled "Frère Jean Jacques" for the 1968 album The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound of Jean Jacques Perrey.
- The demonstrators in Tiananmen Square chanted political slogans to the tune of "Frère Jacques".[14]
- There is a strong oral tradition among children in China, Vietnam and other places in Asia of passing on songs with their own lyrics, sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques".[15] For example, one of the most popular versions of the lyric among Chinese children is about "two tigers" (两只老虎).
- In the Beatles song "Paperback Writer", George Harrison and John Lennon sing "Frère Jacques" as harmony under the main melody of the second and third verses.
- Frère Jacques is the name of a chain of franchised French restaurants in the UK[16] and the name of a French restaurant in the Murray Hill section of New York City.[17] Les Frères Jacques is the name of a French restaurant in Dublin.[18]
- Ron Haselden, a British artist living in the French town of Brizard, in Brittany, has produced a well-known interactive multimedia piece featuring "Frère Jacques" in collaboration with Peter Cusack.[19]
- The Chinese song "Dadao lie qiang" ("Cut down the great powers", or rather: "Let's beat together the great powers", also known as 'The "Revolution of the Citizens" Song') celebrates the cooperation in China in the 1920s of Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang against warlords and imperialist powers, and is sung to the tune of "Frère Jacques".[20]
- Argentine composer Juan Maria Solare's piece "Frère Jacques the Ripper (deconstructing the Canon) for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Cello" transforms the familiar "Frère Jacques" melody by altering the speed, the tonality, the key, inverting the tune and applying fractal transformations to the tune. This piece was performed in Cologne in 2003.
- The song is sung in the episode "Disaster" of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Captain Jean-Luc Picard and a group of children aboard the Enterprise, and played by Picard and Lt. Cmdr. Nella Daren as a flute–piano duet in the episode "Lessons". Captain Picard also plays this song when living the life of a man named Kamin in the episode "The Inner Light".
- British military cadets have traditionally sung the tune with different words as a taunt to visiting French military cadets during visits to British military academies. The words are the names of British military victories over the French:
- Don Draper is teased by Roger Sterling with "Frère Jacques" in the Mad Men fifth season premiere after Draper's wife sings French pop song Zou Bisou Bisou at a party.
- Bill Haley & His Comets used the melody of this song for their 1958 composition "Vive la Rock and Roll", which was released on their album Rockin' Around the World and later performed with Catarina Valente in the 1959 German movie Hier bin ich – hier bleib' ich (Here I Am, Here I Stay) released by Central Cinema Company Film (CCC). Prior to joining the Comets as its steel guitarist and later lead guitarist, Nick Nastos, under the name Nick Nantos and His Fireballers, recorded an instrumental adaptation of "Brother John" for his 1964 album Guitars on Fire.
- The song is among several responses that Cortana on Windows can provide when asked to "sing me a song".
| In the television film Billy and Mandy’s Big Boogey Adventure, the character Fred Fredburger sings a variation of the song which goes: “Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, I gotta poo, I gotta poo, blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah, ding dong Fred Fredburger yes!”
References[edit]
- ↑ Reinhold Schmid: 50 Kanons. Vienna, n.d. [ca. 1950] (Philharmonia pocket scores No. 86)
- ↑ Ute Jung-Kaiser: "Die wahren Bilder und Chiffren 'tragischer Ironie' in Mahlers 'Erster' " In: Günther Weiß (ed.): Neue Mahleriana: essays in honour of Henry-Louis de LaGrange on his seventieth birthday. Lang, Berne etc. 1997, ISBN 3-906756-95-5 Search this book on
.. pp. 101–152
- ↑ Mahler and the Crisis of Jewish Identity by Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp, Echo volume III, issue 2 (Fall 2001)
- ↑ Symphony No. 1 in D major Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, Composer: Gustav Mahler, Program note originally written for the following performance: National Symphony Orchestra: Leonard Slatkin, conductor; Dotian Levalier, harp; Mahler's First Symphony Jun 7 - 9, 2007, Richard Freed
- ↑ "Mahler's Music", Dean Olsher, of NPR's Morning Edition, July 31, 1998, discusses jazz musician and composer Uri Caine's reinterpretations of Mahler.
- ↑ "You don’t see many of those these days", Joker – Trivia, Follow your Dream, BBC
- ↑ Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, edited by Jean Albert Bede, William Benbow Edgerton, Columbia University Press, 1980.
- ↑ Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopædia Britannica, ISBN 0-87779-042-6 Search this book on ., 1995
- ↑ Mon Frère Jacques (1925) on IMDb Search this movie on
- ↑ Saint Benedict-du-Lac Abbey, Quebec, Canada website.
- ↑ Les Frères Jacques Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine, Biography, RFI Musique, March 2004
- ↑ What Makes Music Symphonic? (1958) on IMDb Search this movie on , Leonard Bernstein
- ↑ Young People's Concerts, Leonard Bernstein, 1958
- ↑ "Comrade Jiang Zemin does indeed seem a proper choice", Jasper Becker, London Review of Books, Vol. 23 No. 10, 24 May 2001
- ↑ Eating the mosquito: Transmission of a Chinese children's folksong, David Seubert, Chinoperl Papers, vol. 16 1992. p. 133–143. ISSN 0193-7774
- ↑ "About Frères Jacques" Archived 2007-10-07 at the Wayback Machine, Frères Jacques Restaurant-Bar-Cafe, a UK franchised restaurant chain (depuis 1994)
- ↑ Hello and Welcome to the Frère Jacques Website Archived 2008-02-17 at the Wayback Machine, Frère Jacques Restaurant, Murray Hill section of New York City
- ↑ Les Frères Jacques, Dublin, Ireland Archived 2005-05-16 at the Wayback Machine restaurant review
- ↑ Frère Jacques et autres pièces à Francis: Expositions. 1997. Saint-Fons Ron Haselden, Saint-Fons, Centre d'Arts Plastiques, 1997, ISBN 2-9509357-2-9 Search this book on .
- ↑ Une utilisation insolite de la musique de l'Autre, Pom pom pom pom: Musiques et caetera Neuchatel: Musee d'Ethnographie 1997 pp. 227–241.
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