Around the middle of the nineteenth century, the cris de Paris were still mainly regarded as annoying noise. Since then, however, a process was underway to regulate and reduce itinerant street trading. During this process, which takes place over several decades, the street cries are being listened to and described with increasing interest.According to Joseph Mainzer, the cries were an elementary form of folk music; Jean-Georges Kastner saw in them music in the process of coming into being. Kastner’s artistic ambition was to give musical form to ‘the voices of Paris’. Not his own composition, but Gustave Charpentier’s opera Louise can be seen as the realsation of that ambition.Music excerpts:References: see https://lodewijkmuns.nl/podcast/speech-melodies-and-street-cries-1/