Alleged restored clip of Pilu et Mimi Doudou (date uncertain). Source: NiniVid archives. Authenticity unverified.
The video-file seems corrupted.
We’re deeply sorry!
A LOST MASTERPIECE
It remains an enduring disappointment that no recording survives of the one known masterpiece by the artist Pilu Doudou.
Not on Spotify, not on YouTube, not in any private or public archive. Even inquiries at the esteemed Institut Français des Grands Compositeurs Contemporains in Lyon yielded nothing.
The staff there, unfailingly polite, claimed never to have encountered the composer’s name at all.
The Musée des Rouleaux de Cire in Avignon proved equally unfruitful, though it must be said they generously granted access to their cooled vaults containing more than 3,200 wax cylinders.
Each one was inspected.
None contained the sought-after work.
A MYSTERY
And yet the lyrics exist — preserved in black and white.
And according to Ferrier, the composition itself was “limpide, frappant et simple” —crystal-clear, striking, and simple.
Why, then, the silence?
A clerical error? Institutional oversight?
Or something else?We may never know.
The IFGCC (A Brief Note)
Founded in 1897 and housed in a discreet building in Lyon’s 6th arrondissement, the Institut Français des Grands Compositeurs Contemporains guards an impressive archive of French musical history.
Its curators, however, apply a notably narrow definition of “composer of national relevance,” and it is not unheard of for certain marginal or regionally attested figures to be absent from their ledgers.
Whether this omission is accidental or intentional in the case of Pilu Doudou remains unclear.
Historical records from the fin de siècle are, after all, incomplete by nature — sometimes because they were never kept, and sometimes because they were never meant to be.
A Modest Consolation
For the reader-listener who is left empty-handed, here is at least a small comfort:
a recipe for roast chicken with lemon, thyme, and garlic butter,
–and, for the reader seeking an equivalent in spirit, the celebrated Hippopotamus Song (Flanders & Swann) — a work whose enthusiastic communal refrains recall, in their own way, the triumphs once attributed to Pilu Doudou..
A modest substitute, perhaps — but perfectly serviceable.
DISCLAIMER
The editorial board also wishes to address recurring allegations that Monsieur Doudou never existed at all, and that the works attributed to him may have originated from a celebrated composer of the period, purely — it is said — to cast his own music in a more flattering light.
We consider such assertions unhelpful and almost certainly misguided.
Our honoured composer Ferrier would never resort to such methods.
