Giuseppe Saggione

about

Giuseppe Fedeli, known by the sobriquet “Saggione,” is documented as a composer whose music circulated in early eighteenth-century Paris through engraved song collections that explicitly cultivate an Italianate flavour for French-language airs. In 1728 a book of airs françois dans le goût italien, sérieux et à boire, engraved by Louis-Hector Hue, appeared for sale in Paris and presents the composer as “Mr. Saggione Venitien”; the print is dedicated to “Madame la Duchesse” and is framed as a practical repertory, with the title page noting that the airs may be performed on instruments as well as sung. Within that 1728 volume, the song commonly encountered under the incipit “Si je fais l’amour” belongs to a larger number titled L’Amour pour rire, a witty miniature that plays on the pose of love (and, in other stanzas, drinking) as something undertaken “only for a laugh,” while still letting genuine feeling peek through the mask. Modern reception of this item is often mediated by anthology programmes devoted to brunettes and related light vocal genres, where Saggione’s contribution sits naturally among the mingling of serious and drinking airs that characterised salon and convivial repertories in the period. A select modern recording context for this specific piece is its inclusion on Les Kapsber’girls, Vous avez dit Brunettes? (Alpha Classics), where it appears under the collection-title reference Recueil d’airs françois dans le goût italien… and the track title “Si je fais l’a

top songs

albums

similar artists