After strolling along the banks of the Seine for the opening ceremony, music – at least as far as the biggest national and international stars are concerned – returned to the traditional stage for the closing ceremony, with the Stade France in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, as a backdrop. This time, there was no star of the caliber of Quebec's Céline Dion, who on July 26 sang in public for the first time since 2010, paying tribute to Edith Piaf with "Hymne à l'Amour."

The young Zaho de Sagazan, 24, who has been on the rise since the February release of her debut album La Symphonie des Eclairs, was tasked with carrying on the tradition of French chanson. She delivered a simple yet convincing performance at the Tuileries Gardens in Paris, where the Olympic flame was first lit, collaborating naturally with Jean-Christophe Spinosi's Ensemble Matheus and the Académie Haendel-Hendrix choir.

Their lively rendition of "Sous le Ciel de Paris," one of the most famous anthems to the city since it appeared in the 1951 Julien Duvivier film of the same name (and before it was also performed by Piaf), was a standout moment in an evening mostly dominated by the music of director Thomas Jolly’s collaborators, Victor Le Masne and Clément Mirguet.

Le Masne's versatility across different styles was evident, but it made his music feel somewhat impersonal. This was noticeable from his arrangement of the national anthem "La Marseillaise," sung by the Maîtrise de Fontainebleau, which deliberately lacked momentum. His original compositions for the ceremony, under the baton of Zahia Ziouani leading her Divertimento orchestra, ranged from neo-disco to traditional variety show themes. Meanwhile, Mirguet’s creation for the futuristic Records segment sounded like a video game soundtrack, despite the use of Martenot waves and a zurna, an Ottoman oboe.

After the "Hymne to Apollo," one of the two ancient Greek musical compositions dedicated to the god and discovered in Delphi in 1893, sung by the French-Swiss tenor Benjamin Bernheim, the ceremony transitioned into a "French Touch" sequence. This featured the band Phoenix, performing their own songs, as well as accompanying their friends from Air on "Playground Love," a track from the soundtrack of The Virgin Suicides (1999), directed by Sofia Coppola. This performance mirrored a concert given by the two groups on July 17 atop Terminal 1 of Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport.

There were also some new elements, including a duet between Kavinsky and Belgian singer Angèle for "Night Call," and contributions from Ezra Koenig, lead singer of the New York band Vampire Weekend, on Phoenix's "Tonight," as well as the Cambodian rapper VannDa.

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