Jun 26, 2014

5/917 Mathé Altéry: Le temps perdu (France 1956)

As mentioned in my earlier article, during the last twenty years lots of new countries have introduced themselves in the Eurovision Song Contest presenting their first entry ever to the European ears. It is easy to forget that even the most established countries in this occasion also had their first song sung at some point in the mists of history. Even France.


France took part in the Eurovision Song Contest of course from the very beginning. The first French entry was the fifth song ever to be sung in this television series that next year celebrates its 60th episode. The honor was given to Mathé Altéry, a soprano that sung both chanson and classical music. Her entry leaned more to the classical side of her talent, a short ballad sung with the prominent accompaniment of piano, oboe and some nice strings.

The good arrangement of the song managed hardly to hide the fact that the composition had not much to talk about. It is not terrible but nothing really to remember it by. The operatic vocals by Altéry alienates the song further from its audience. Apparently no studio recording of this song was ever made and I can understand why.

But what did it matter, no final results (except for the winner) have ever been released from the 1956 contest, so both French entries (as all seven participating countries had two songs in the contest) shared the second place in the final results. I doubt that if the results had been revealed, this song would not have been in the upper half of the list.

My points 2/5.

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