Plaisir d'amour

"Plaisir d'amour" ([plɛ.ziʁ da.muʁ], "Pleasure of love") is a classical French love song written in 1784 by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816); it took its text from a poem by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794), which appears in his novel Célestine.

Music by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816)

Lyrics by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794)

The song was greatly successful in Martini's version. For example, a young woman, Madame Julie Charles, sang it to the poet Alphonse de Lamartine during his cure at Aix-les-Bains in 1816, and the poet was to recall it 30 years later.^[1]

Hector Berlioz arranged it for orchestra (H134) in 1859.^[2] Louis van Waefelghem arranged the tune for viola d'amore or viola and piano in the 1880s.^{[citation needed]} It has been arranged and performed in various pop music settings.

Recordings

• Rina Ketty in 1939 (with extended lyrics)^[3]

• Paul Robeson in 1940^{[4][non-primary source needed]}

• Joan Baez in 1961^{[5][unreliable source]}
• The Seekers and Judith Durham in 1964^[6] or 1993 concert^{[7][non-primary source needed]}
• Marianne Faithfull on her debut-album Marianne Faithfull in 1965
• Mary Hopkin in Welsh as "Pleserau Serch", 1971^{[8][unreliable source]}

• Mireille Mathieu on her album Les grandes chansons françaises [fr] (1985)^{[9][unreliable source]}
• Gabriel Yacoub on disc 9 Chansons d'Amore of the multi-volume Anthologie de la chanson française recorded in 1992–1994

• The Kings Singers in 1993, on their album Chansons D'amour^{[10] [non-primary source needed]}
• Judy Collins on her 2000 album Classic Folk^{[11][unreliable source]}
• Jacky Terrasson on his 2000 album A Paris...
• Charlotte Church Live in Jerusalem 2001
• Nana Mouskouri and Charles Aznavour on the album Nana & Friends – Rendez-vous (2012)^{[12][unreliable source]}
• Nick Drake in 2012^{[13][unreliable source]} (recorded 1971)

In popular culture

The tune is heavily featured as a theme to the 1939 feature film Love Affair starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, with Dunne also performing the song within her role as a singer^{[14][unreliable source][15][non-primary source needed]}

The song served as the main theme of, and was sung by Montgomery Clift in, the 1949 movie The Heiress.^{[16][unreliable source]}

The opening sequence of the Christmas comedy film We're No Angels (1955), directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Humphrey Bogart, contains the song "Ma France Bien-Aimée" which borrows the music of "Plaisir d'amour".^{[citation needed]}

The melodies for Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" (1961) and the 20th century Christian hymn "My God Loves Me" are based on "Plaisir d'amour".^[17][18]

Mado Robin's version of the song plays in Djibril Diop Mambéty's 1973 film Touki Bouki when Nori and Anta go to visit a rich patron's estate in order to convince him to fund their trip to Paris. It is repeated a few times more throughout the remainder of the film.^{[importance of example(s)?][19][unreliable source?]}

A church choir performs this song for exhausted members of Easy Company in the episode entitled "The Breaking Point" in HBO's acclaimed miniseries Band of Brothers.^{[20][unreliable source]}

In the 1966 movie Batman, the song was being performed by an on-stage singer (Julie Gregg) in a romantic restaurant that Bruce Wayne (Adam West) had unwittingly taken Catwoman (Lee Meriwether) to on a date, thinking she was the Russian journalist "Kitayna Ireyna Tatanya Kerenska Alisoff".