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Chanson (French for "song") refers to any song with French words, but more specifically classic, lyric-driven French songs, European songs in the cabaret style, or a diverse range of songs interpreted in this style. A singer specializing in chansons is known as a chansonnier; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.

In a more specialised usage, the word 'chanson' refers to a polyphonic French song of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. Early chansons tended to be in one of the formes fixes, ballade, rondeau or virelai, while later composers set poetry in a variety of forms, using an increasingly wide range of musical techniques. By the end of the 16th century the chanson was mostly replaced by the air de cour.

The earliest chansons were for two, three or four voices, with first three becoming the norm, expanding to four and sometimes more voices by the 16th century. Sometimes, the singers were accompanied by instruments. Poetic topics were typically secular, with courtly love being the predominant subject in the 15th century. In the 16th century, verse covered a wider range of subject matter, from the reverent to the satirical, and from the pastoral to the earthy and occasionally obscene.

Origins
The earliest chansons followed on the work of the trouvères and troubadours, who wrote the earliest monophonic secular songs in French to survive in notated form, mainly in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.

A few polyphonic secular compositions survive from before the 14th century. Adam de La Halle composed 16 rondeaux in three voices in the mid-to-late 13th century; these are the earliest polyphonic chansons known. In the early 14th century, composers such as Jehan de L'Escurel wrote chansons. The texture in these compositions is usually note-against-note rather than polyphonic, resembling the conductus; the melodic voice is usually the lowest sounding, and sometimes the voice in the middle.

14th century
By far the most famous composer of chansons during the 14th century was Guillaume de Machaut, who left over 70 polyphonic chansons, mostly for three voices and using the formes fixes. Machaut's style featured freely written, highly decorated, and rhythmically complex melodic lines; in addition, he put the melody in the topmost voice, where it was usually to stay after this time.

After Machaut, and before the development of the mid-15th century Burgundian chanson, there were two significant generations of composers writing chansons: a group of composers working in a complex, manneristic style known as the ars subtilior, and a subsequent generation which used a simpler style. Some composers who were young at the end of the 14th century, such as Baude Cordier and Matteo da Perugia, wrote in both styles, and the development of the simpler chanson style of the 15th century can be seen clearly in their work.

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The first important composer of chansons was Guillaume de Machaut, who composed three-voice works in the formes fixes during the 14th century. Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois, who wrote so-called Burgundian chansons (because they were from the area known as Burgundy), were the most important chanson composers of the next generation (c. 1420-1470). Their chansons somewhat simple in style, are also generally in three voices with a structural tenor. Later 15th- and early 16th-century figures in the genre included Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin Desprez, whose works cease to be constrained by formes fixes and begin to feature a similar pervading imitation to that found in contemporary motets and liturgical music. At mid-century, Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin were composers of so-called Parisian chansons, which also abandoned the formes fixes and were in a simpler, more homophonic style, sometimes featuring music that was meant to be evocative of certain imagery. Many of these Parisian works were published by Pierre Attaingnant. Composers of their generation, as well as later composers, such as Orlando de Lassus, were influenced by the Italian madrigal. Many early instrumental works were ornamented variations (diminutions) on chansons, with this genre becoming the canzone, a progenitor of the sonata.

The first book of sheet music printed from movable type was Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, a collection of 96 chansons by many composers, published in Venice in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci.

Later chansons
French solo song developed in the late 16th century, probably from the aforementioned Parisian works. During the 17th century, the air de cour, chanson pour boire, and other like genres, generally accompanied by lute or keyboard, flourished, with contributions by such composers as Antoine Boesset, Denis Gaultier, Michel Lambert, and Michel-Richard de Lalande.

During the 18th century, vocal music in France was dominated by Opera, but solo song underwent a Renaissance in the 19th, first with salon melodies, but by mid-century with highly sophisticated works influenced by the German Lieder which had been introduced into the country. Louis Niedermayer, under the particular spell of Schubert was a pivotal figure in this movement, followed by Eduard Lalo, Felicien David, and many others. Later 19th-century composers of French song, called either melodie or chanson, included Ernest Chausson, Emmanuel Chabrier, Gabriel Fauré, and Claude Debussy, while many 20th-century French composers have continued this strong tradition.

See also the early medieval heroic lays called Chansons de geste, which were declaimed (from memory) rather than actually being sung.

Popular Chanson
In France today "chanson" often refers to the work of more popular singers like Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Édith Piaf, Camille Dalmais, Olivia Ruiz, etc.

Perissone Cambio
Perissone Cambio (c.1520 – c.1562) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer, active in Venice. He was one of the most prominent students of Willaert during the formative years of the Venetian School, and published several books of madrigals in the 1540s.

Nothing is known about his early life except that he was from Flanders or the immediately adjacent French-speaking areas. Two competing mentions of his origin exist in the historical record, one naming him as French and one as Flemish, with the Flemish mention coming from the Venetian Senate. By the early 1540s he had come from his homeland to Venice, probably to study with Willaert, who was renowned as a teacher; Perissone became one of his best-known students, and also quickly became known for the excellence of his singing.