GabySome melodies are wired into our memories: a song can instantly bring back a particular event, the jingles of a long-running commercial, or the theme music of a TV show.
For people who grew up in the USSR, Marie Laforêt’s “Manchester and Liverpool” instantly evokes the weather forecast, while James Last’s “Ra-ta-ta” is forever linked to the opening sequence of the Soviet quiz show What? Where? When?.
Almost everyone born before 1991 (and even some after) associates a particular melody with the TV show In the World of Animals. It was one of the most upbeat things on Soviet television — a kind of Animal Planet, with educational, popular-science segments and, of course, plenty of cute animals. The theme music matched the tone: gentle animation showed ostriches and cranes dancing, monkeys swinging on vines. Let’s take another look.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Va4_6QtKAwQ%3Fstart%3D74
From the moment listeners began asking where the tune came from, many were certain it was performed — and therefore composed — by French arranger Paul Mauriat. He’s the same composer whose music appears in the Gendarme films starring Louis de Funès. People remembered the title as either “Lark” or “Dove,” and the Mauriat recording that reached Soviet audiences reinforced that belief. That’s close to the truth, but not the whole story.
Paul Mauriat
The melody’s roots lie in Latin America. Its composer was Argentine Ariel Ramírez, who spent years researching South American folk music and traditional rhythms.
Ramírez is also known for Misa Criolla (Creole Mass), one of his most famous works, which combined classical choral music with Latin American folk traditions. In 1964 he wrote a cantata for choir titled “Navidad Nuestra” (“Our Christmas”) based on words by Argentine writer Félix Luna. One excerpt, “La Peregrinación” (“The Pilgrimage”), is the cantata’s tenth movement; it tells of the Virgin Mary’s journey through the desert and the birth of Jesus. In Spanish-speaking countries, Navidad Nuestra is a major religious work, and “La Peregrinación” is often performed on Christmas Eve in churches and at family gatherings. This 1976 performance by the Argentine quartet Los Fronterizos, accompanied by the Buenos Aires polyphonic choir with Ramírez at the piano, captures the piece’s dignity and power.
The song reached wider fame thanks to Mercedes Sosa — Argentina’s leading singer, often called “the voice of Latin America.” With a powerful, unmistakable voice and Aymara ancestry, Sosa helped popularize the piece. After the 1976 coup she faced political persecution and was even arrested onstage three years later. She later lived in Europe for a time before returning home.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ng7sIThzZ1g%3Fstart%3D66
Sosa’s piercing rendition reportedly struck French chansonnier Gilles Dreu. Dreu, who worked with poet-songwriter Pierre Delanoë (a writer for Édith Piaf and Joe Dassin), asked Delanoë to adapt the piece into French. Delanoë kept an echo of the original — the Spanish opening “A la huella” (“on the trail”) — and wrote new lyrics. He called the result “Alouette” (“The Lark”) and set words about love and summer fading like cigarettes. Here is the best-known performance of that chanson:
In 1968 Paul Mauriat’s orchestral arrangement of “Alouette” became a worldwide hit, and that version is what Soviet viewers heard. In 1974 Alexander Zguridi, the show’s creator and first host, personally selected the melody as the theme for In the World of Animals, and the accompanying animated sequence became iconic. It’s hard to imagine the program with any other tune.
You might be wondering about the “dove” I mentioned earlier. For the show’s first six years after it launched in 1968, Mauriat’s “Colombe Ivre” (“Drunken Dove”) served as the theme. Here it is:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=mPxEmmAAL18%3Fstart%3D37
So: a religious Christmas cantata from Latin America was adapted into a French chanson about love, which then became the theme for a popular science TV program. Finally, here’s a moving rendition by the Angel City Chorale — it instantly feels like the holidays. Give it a listen before Christmas and you’ll hope for quiet, peaceful celebrations.
