The Ant and The Grasshopper - Musical Settings

Musical Settings

La Fontaine's version of the fable was set by the following French composers:

• Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, to whom the works in the fables section of Nouvelles poésies spirituelles et morales sur les plus beaux airs (1730–37) have been attributed. The text is modified to fit the tune and is retitled La fourmi et la sauterelle.
• Jacques Offenbach in Six Fables de La Fontaine (1842) for soprano and small orchestra
• Charles Gounod, part-song for a cappella choir (1857)
• Benjamin Godard in Six Fables de La Fontaine for voice and piano, (Op.17 c.1871)
• Louis Lacombe, set for 4 male voices (Op. 88,2 1887)
• Charles Lecocq in Six Fables de Jean de la Fontaine for voice and piano (1900)
• Camille Saint-Saëns for voice and piano or orchestra (1910?)
• André Caplet in Trois Fables de Jean de la Fontaine (1919) for voice and piano
• Paul-Marie Masson, for voice and piano (1926)
• Maurice Delage in Deux fables de Jean de la Fontaine (1931)
• Marcelle de Manziarly in Trois Fables de La Fontaine (1935) for voice and piano
• Jean-René Quignard for 2 children’s voices
• Charles Trenet, performed with Django Reinhardt and the Hot Club de France in 1941
• Claude Ballif, the first of his Chansonettes : 5 Fables de La Fontaine for small mixed choir (Op.72, Nº1 1995)
• Ida Gotkovsky (1933-), the first fable in Hommage à Jean de La Fontaine for mixed choirs and orchestra (1995)
• Jean-Marie Morel (1934-), a small cantata set for children's choir and string quartet in La Fontaine en chantant (1999)
• Isabelle Aboulker (b.1938), the fourth piece in Femmes en fables (1999) for high voice with piano

There were two comic operas that went under the title La cigale et la fourmi in the 19th century. The one by Ferdinand Poise was in one act and dated 1870. The one by Edmond Audran was in three acts and performed in Paris in 1886, in London in 1890 and in New York in 1891. This was shortly followed by the darker mood of Jules Massenet's ballet Cigale, mentioned above. Later adaptations of the fable to ballet include Henri Sauguet's La cigale at la fourmi (1941) and the third episode in Francis Poulenc's Les Animaux Modèles (Model Animals, 1941). In the 21st century there has been "La C et la F de la F", in which the dancers interact with the text, choreographed by Herman Diephuis for Annie Sellem's composite presentation of the fables in 2004.

The Belgian composer Joseph Jongen set La Fontaine's fable for children's chorus and piano (op. 118, 1941) and the Dutch composer Rudolf Koumans set the French text in Vijf fabels van La Fontaine (op. 25, 1964) for school chorus and orchestra. A Russian version of the fable by Ivan Krylov was written under the title "The dragonfly and the ant" (Strekoza i muravej). This was set for voice and piano by Anton Rubinstein in 1851; a German version (Der Ameise und die Libelle) was later published in Leipzig in 1864 as part of his Fünf Fabeln (Op.64). In the following century the Russian text was again set by Dmitri Shostakovich in Two Fables of Krylov for mezzo-soprano, female chorus and chamber orchestra (op.4, 1922). A Hungarian translation of the fable by Dezső Kosztolányi was also set for mezzo-soprano, four-part mixed chorus and 4 guitars or piano by Ferenc Farkas in 1977. The Catalan composer Xavier Benguerel i Godó set the fable in his 7 Fábulas de la Fontaine for recitation with orchestra in 1995. These used a Catalan translation by his father, the writer Xavier Benguerel i Llobet. In 2010 Lefteris Kordis set the Greek text as the second fable in his "Aesop Project" for octet and voice

There have also been purely instrumental pieces; these include the first of Antal Dorati's 5 Pieces for Oboe (1980) and the first of Karim Al-Zand's Four Fables for flute, clarinet and piano (2003).