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Song, melody; also the vocal line.
Two uses. As a staff label, Chant names the voice part in French songs and operas, for the whole piece. In directions, le chant means the melody — suivez le chant, marquez le chant — and its scope is the passage marked.
In a direction, le chant points to whichever line carries the tune, a compact way to ask a pianist or orchestra to bring out or follow the melody without naming the voice: Ravel’s marquez le chant tells the pianist to lift the theme out of the texture. As a staff label, Chant is the standard French choice for a solo voice; choral parts are labelled chœur with the voices named.
Ravel, Pavane pour une infante défunte, piano, m. 60: “marquez le chant” at the return to the 1er Mouvement, two bars after “Très grave”.
Chant is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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