Did you hear Céline Dion sing on the Eiffel Tower at the Opening Ceremony for the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics? I've been listening to this video all morning! I just learned from my stepmom Sue Bourque that Céline was one of my Dad's favorite singers (and hers too). He would have loved this performance!
Who wrote the lyrics and music?
The lyrics were written by French singing legend Edith Piaf (1915-1963) for her lover and the love of her life, French boxer Marcel Cerdan, before he died tragically in 1949 in a plane crash, on his way from Paris to New York to come to see her.
The music for Hymne à l'Amour was composed by Marguerite Monnot, inspired by the song Spring Night (Frülingsnacht) by Schumann, sung in the video below by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, one of the most amazing tenors who ever lived (other than my Dad of course!!)
Lyrics to Spring Night by Schumann:
Over the garden, through the air
I heard birds of passage fly,
A sign that spring is in the air,
Flowers already bloom below.
I could shout for joy, could weep,
For it seems to me it cannot be!
All the old wonders come flooding back,
Gleaming in the moonlight.
And the moon and stars say it,
And the dreaming forest whispers it,
And the nightingales sing it:
‘She is yours, is yours, is yours!’
English translation © Richard Stokes
Back to the Eiffel Tower
And now, scroll back up to the top and listen to Céline again.
Vive la France. Vive l'amour.
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