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NICE CARNIVAL / CARNIVAL OF NICE
Nice France : the city of French Carnival
 The Tumult
The practise of the tumult seems very popular, in the country of Nice, in period of Carnival, as well as texts found by the historian Ch-A Fighiéra testify of it: the municipal edicts of 1539 and 1612 give very precise details of the organization of the tumults by the Abbots of the Madmen (cf. In. Sidro, " The Carnival of Nice and his (her) Madmen ", ed. Serre).
This custom, which was often practised in Europe, during the cycle of Carnival-Lent, took place also outside this period (on the occasion of the remarriage of the widowers), either for reasons of moral or administrative corruption.
The rite is always the same: it is a question of going under the windows of the elected victim and of provoking a din, a tumult " to wake a dead man ". And so picturesque stories evoke tumults, in the Old - Nice, in the last century for example.
" From then on, one saw coming from all the streets men, women and children, knocking on any sorts of household stuff, in the sound of the sea conches and the little spherical bells of mules, melodious, hissing, breaking pots and other old vases, throwing stones to doors and to windows. " (J.B. Toselli, History of Nice).
A practise which persisted more in the villages of the high country of Nice than in the streets of Old - Nice. But on corsi, one maintained the tradition of the whistled language (close to the satire), where masks enjoyed "mocking ("hunting for antiques") the passer-by, called "to their victims " on their "misdemeanours", by whistling to them with a falsetto voice " Va que ti connouissi ". |
Musical traditions in the XIX-th century
Among the well anchored traditions in the Carnival of Nice, we shall evoke those directly bound to the practise of this " paramusic " quoted first and provoked with instruments of the darkness " completely particular and exceptional, those of the brass band grotesque of Nice: Vespa which accompanied merry and dynamic grotesque group of Maurou; Paillassou, Maurou, Vespa, appear among the oldest traditions of the Carnival of Nice. |
Maurou
Maurou groups from four to five young people, the head put on by a night hat or by a turban of doubtful whiteness, dirtied the face and the arms with the soot, and put on a sheet or decked out themselves of a burnous the shape of the neckline of which they cut. They went through the parade, in sinusoidal movement, either Group of Cepoun split the crowd with big knocks of shoulder when it did not deviate fast enough and they sang the song of Maurou.
Sien Maurou lou saben
Cu voû si fa bouffa
Semblan toui d'africain Che vengon n'a trouva
Ma se si lavessien
Lu boufferen lou traoù Bessai vou plaserien
Sensa li faire maù
Se lu bouffet son rout
Faoù lu fa arrangia
Si n'avès plus d'argen
Asperes l'an che ven.
A song interpreted on the air of the song of " Bouffets " or " Soufflaculs " such the very beautiful version which is presented in the disc " Tresors dau Pais Nissart " (ed. Ventadorn, on 1980).
This presence of Maurou, corresponded in carnivals of Nice to the obstinacy in the " collective memory " and to the transmission of the popular culture (gestural and not verbal) of the evocation of the "Saracens" (Turks or Mediterranean pirates of different origins), responsible for many plunders in the Mediterranean history and to which are attributed the facts which have sometimes only a very distant report with their exactions but the track of which we find in the local festivals (Sarrazin in Languedoc, Pailhasse near Montpelier, Corpus Christi in Aix-en-Provence, Maurou in Nice but also in Spain, in Venetia and in Yugoslavia.
Mostly, Maurou followed the group of Paillassou, which fooled this model of straw and rags with a tense sheet and Maurou was accompanied with a group of musicians endowed with bizarre instruments, cut in dried gourds, with cougourdons. This grotesque brass band was called Vespa (the wasp). |
Vespa: grotesque Brass band
Vespa disappeared from corsi around the sixties, and its invaluable instruments were exposed in the Museum Masséna, thanks to the donation of a carpenter, Mr. Louis Allo.
It is necessary to clarify the peculiarity of Vespa, (underlined by Claudie Marcel-Dubois des ATP): it is apparently only in Nice, in the European part of the Mediterranean Sea where we use musically cut instruments ~ in gourds/gourds, while it is usual in Africa or in Amerindian America.
Vespa knows a flourish for some years, thanks to Yves Rousguisto's talent and to Cepoun (musical traditional group of Vence).
In 1984, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Carnival, and the next years, " Vespas " was recreated in several schools of Nice where the children were introduced in the making and the use of these " instruments of the darkness " so particular and learn the dances of Carnival. An initiative of the Events committee of Nice and the Department of Education.
Among all the instruments of Vespa, let us quote: the drum with friction, the Petadou the name of which comes of " pet ", " petà " that is " die, to break itself, click ", and among which the sound if particular joins in the symbolism evoked first by the rite of the musics of the Darkness; |
The floats of music
In 1877, the float of the " Itinerant Theatre " innovates by animating its marionettes in the sound of an orchestra placed in front of the float and which plays the music. The importance of the grotesque processions from the end of last century and the increasing number of floats and masquerades influenced and modified the role of the music on the parade and provoked the appearance of floats of music, towards 1890.
By putting the musicians on a platform fitted out in terraces, one increased the tone of instruments, on the other hand, the float of music became the companion of official floats of S. M Carnival and his wife.
Certain floats of music, very often conceived by G-A Mossa, or Larnach remained famous in the recollection of carnavaliers of Nice, as the " Babaoù " (1905), "Pears (1914)", etc….
Often, these floats had the shape of an instrument: a bass was pressed on partitions (1891), monumental organ (1894), immense accordion with a white clowl in the summit playing the slide trombone (1896); the other floats treated local or international events, the float of the line Nice-Coni (l909), the dragonfly (in 1910, honoring to Santos-Dumont), Pears (1914). All the floats adopted afterward an orchestra behind their platform, in a way that the numerous disguised follow floats, by dancing, by jumping, by laughing. Certain groups of big heads, also, were accompanied by an orchestra where the " georgina " (this small accordion) was employed.
At the end of the parade, the musics and military brass bands (notably those of the alpine hunters) were collected. In the four corners of the place Masséna, l0 000 in 15 000 disguised, participated cheerfully in farandoles - at the rate of the famous " Es rotta la casserola ". |
The official song of carnival
The official song of carnival is created in 1905, by the Events committee, to welcome Carnival from its arrival. It was at first chosen in a competition limited to the lyric writers then the composers entered competition and should exaggerate their variation on his prized work . In 1905 it is the song in the language of Nice, " E viva Carneval ", that obtained the prize.
But a rivalry undertook among Nice authors and French authors
A journalist Fernand de Rocher, protested deeply against the allocation of the prize to " " E viva Carneval " in little laudatory terms for the language of Nice " it is allowed to our foreign or French hosts to ignore the beauties of the language of oc. Provençal or nissard, while so many aborigines grazed it and distort it so pitifully. Few winter holiday-makers speak or understand French. It is so to deprive of the holiday a supplement importing that to want to reduce it to a simple local demonstration. "
It is necessary to believe that his comments were settled because he won the prize of the song in 1908
The most famous lyric writer was the bard of Nice Menica Rondelly, the author of Nissa La Bella; among the most famous songs appear:
Es Carnival!!! (1909),
Noise! Noise! (1910)
Pin Pan! (1914)
Gnic! Gnac! (1921)
Velou! Velou (1922), the biggest success, celebrates the old Bridge, destroyed that year; it is one of the most joyful airs of the carnival of Nice
Fai Anà! (1923)
Among the other authors, the lyric writers or the composers, let us quote A Fenouille, D Mari, Theo Martin, Roger Lucchesi or Toni Rainaud.
The song of Carnival was a real link among the Inhabitants of Nice. The street singers contributed to create a real festive atmosphere from Christmas, they interpreted the song in all the districts, and everybody knew it by heart, on corsi. |
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