ANALYSIS OF THE PIECE “MARRIAGE

D`AMORE”
BY PAUL DE SENNEVILLE.

Musicianship analysis assigment.

María Isabel Fernández Ramírez

Paul de Senneville
Paul de Senneville (born 30 July 1933) is a French melody composer and a music producer. His
best-known works include "Ballade pour Adeline", "Mariage d’amour" and "Dolannes Melodie".
He began his career as a journalist working for French newspapers such as France Soir. Later, he
became a TV program producer as well.
As a director of a record company, Disc AZ, he started a new career based on his passion for life:
music.
After writing his first song in 1962, he contributed music for songs in many movie soundtracks
produced by French companies such as Universe Galaxie and Daber Films. In 1968, while
managing Michel Polnareff's career, he met Olivier Toussaint, forming a successful songwriting
partnership.
Their songs were recorded by major French artists such as: Mireille Mathieu, Michèle Torr,
Christophe, Hervé Vilard, Dalida, Petula Clarkand Claude François. This partnership accounts
for over 100 million records sold internationally. Partnering with lyricist Jean-Loup Dabadie, he
wrote Tous les bateaux, Tous les Oiseaux, a French hit recorded by Michel Polnareff.
Very soon, the pair got involved in Production. They started the group Pop Concerto Orchestra,
on which Toussaint sang lead. Soon after, they launched their second group Anarchic Systemthat
produced Rock & roll. Over a period of 5 years, the two groups sold millions of records.

Mariage D’ Amour
Mariage d'amour (Marriage of Love) is a piece of French solo piano music, composed by Paul
de Senneville in 1979, and first performed by the pianist Richard Clayderman (who performed a
lot of his songs) from his album Lettre À Ma Mère in 1979.
Later, pianist George Davidson performed this piece of music from his album My Heart Will Go
On with a slightly different version.
This version is sometimes erroneously attributed to Frédéric Chopin as "Spring Waltz" because
of an upload on YouTube with the wrong title, which reached over 34 million views before being
removed. As of August 2021, several new copies with that erroneous title are available on
YouTube, and one of them has reached over 130 million views.

Analysis of Mariage D’ Amour

The structure of the piece is: INTRODUCTION – PART A- PART B- CODA.
This theme is written for piano solo. The key signature is B flat, and the music is in the key of G
minor witch is his relative.
The time signature is slow, 72 crotchets per bpm.
The introduction is five bars long. The song starts with Alberti bass, or broken chords, playing
notes of a triad in the bass with the left hand played in common time. The right hand is busy
playing semi quavers, it is quasi recitative. The music in this piece is suggested, like creating a
mood.

In bar 3 the song changes the time signature changing to the rhythm to 3|4.
The chord patron is Gm-Cm-F7-Bb. This means the progression would be i-iv-V-I-III(V)-I.
There is a tonal relation in this piece, the composer is using the two keys for the chord
progression, using the III as a pivot chord, in Bb, and the (V) in Gm.
Section A is faster than the introduction, 50 dotted minim per bpm. The piece now sounds like a
fast waltz.

Here the phrase structure is unusual, because it is seven bars long, instead of the common four.
This creates a lightly movement in the music.
Line one and two in this section are the same, except that the second line is in a higher octave.
The chord progression is again i-iv-V-I , the first two chords belong to the Gm key and the other
two to Bb.
An important thing in this piece is the movement between the minor chords in Gm and major
chords from the key Bb.
Section B here we have a contrast in the rhythm between part A and part B.

The first note gives as calm now. We can notice how the opening motif in this section B brings
us to a new rhythm, and contrasts with the very rhythmic of section A.
The second line of part B introduces the motif of section A, here we can see how the composer is
joining all together. Here we also can see how he repeats the same but, in a higher octave.

The texture is denser because it is playing in octaves, the section ends in a long note of Gm and
an arpeggio over two octaves in the bass left hand.
After that section repeats, there is a Coda eight bars long to the end. There is a rallentando to the
end.
The last chord is a power chord and the B flat note is why sounds minor.