Mathilde Sings of Grief as a Female Experience

Paris - 13.08.2026: In its summer series on new female voices in French chanson, franceinfo presented Mathilde's piece "A la gloire des femmes en deuil" on August 12. The title can be translated as "To the Glory of Grieving Women." The song, barely a minute and a half long, takes its concise form seriously: no grand gesture of mourning, no orchestral swell, but a direct address to women living with loss.Mathilde, a French singer, writer and composer, released the piece on January 28, 2022, through Editions Raoul Breton. The voice, lyrics, music and arrangement are all her own. This artistic unity shapes the song. Grief is not described from the outside, but brought into a personal, deliberately simple form.The chanson addresses mothers, daughters, sisters and female friends, women who have lost a parent or a child. Mathilde sings of their pain, but also of their dignity and resilience. The word "sorores," echoed in the French text, refers to a sisterhood that extends beyond family ties. Grief thus appears not only as a solitary state, but also as an experience capable of connecting those affected.What is striking is its refusal of false consolation. Mathilde turns the grieving women neither into saints nor into mere symbols. She allows them their fragility and exhaustion, while honoring the everyday work of continuing to live. The song draws its strength precisely from repetition: it pauses instead of covering pain with a quick punchline or a...