The forgotten Don Quichotte: Trois chansons and the early vocal style of Marcel Delannoy

French composer Marcel Delannoy based his song cycle Trois Chansons on stories from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s novel, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, or simply Don Quijote. Although a popular composer during his lifetime and adept in many genres, Delannoy is virtually unknown amongst modern musicians. The purpose of this essay is to re-introduce Delannoy to contemporary American musicians, singers, and teachers of singing. The focus is on Trois Chansons as a worthy complement to the popular baritone recital repertoire of Jacques Ibert and Maurice Ravel, also based on stories from the Cervantes novel. An exploration of Delannoy’s compositional style for solo voice in the period 1928-1935 utilizes available sources, including select piano/vocal scores. An analysis of Trois Chansons compares and contrasts the piano/vocal and orchestra scores from a compositional, thematic, and conceptual basis, with a comparison to the Ravel and Ibert compositions. The goal of this essay is to promote interest in Trois Chansons as a complement to the Don Quichotte pieces of Ibert and Ravel, and inspire further study of the composer and his other works.