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Tu vois le feu du soir, cast in Éluard’s favourite litany form, is another love song—a hymn of praise musically translated into a gentle rhythm as immutable as the poet’s devotion. This is music which shows Poulenc’s strongly idealistic side: there is no room in the Éluard settings for lightweight caprice. However, at the same time as Tel jour telle nuit was being written, Poulenc discovered a writer whose words allowed and encouraged musical settings of charm—with (in his words) ‘a kind of sensitive audacity, of wantonness, of avidity which extended into song that which I had expressed, when very young, in Les Biches with Marie Laurencin’. Not surprisingly for a composer who loved to write for the female voice, this discovery was of a woman poet, Louise de Vilmorin (1902–1969). The poetess’s family was celebrated for the plants, seeds and flowers produced on their estate of Verrières-le-Buisson. Poulenc wrote: ‘Few people move me as much as Louise de Vilmorin: because she is beautiful, because she is lame, because she writes innately immaculate French, because her name evokes flowers and vegetables, because she loves her brothers like a lover and her lovers like a sister. Her beautiful face recalls the seventeenth century, as does the sound of her name.’ The three short songs that make up Vilmorin’s Métamorphoses are quintessential Poulenc, and indeed make up a sampler and mini-compendium of his three basic song styles: fast and capriciously lyrical (Reine des mouettes), slow (never very slow) and touchingly lyrical (C’est ainsi que tu es) and fast in the café-concert tradition, where moto perpetuo virtuosity is the thing (Paganini). That these enchanting feather-light songs stand chronologically close to Tel jour telle nuit shows the discerning versatility of Poulenc’s song-writing in the late 1930s. Colloque, with a text by Paul Valéry (1871–1945), was unpublished until after Poulenc’s death. True to its title it is a colloquy in which the two voices never sing together. Valéry’s original title for the poem (dedicated to Poulenc) was ‘Dialogues pour deux flûtes’. The composer admitted that although he admired Valéry as much as Verlaine or Rimbaud, he was not comfortable in setting his words. The vocal line and harmonies are graceful enough, but there is no real fusion between words and music. The Deux Poèmes de Louis Aragon by contrast are perfect Poulenc. In C, Louis Aragon (1897–1982) sees the fall of France into German hands in 1940 as the sorry outcome of centuries of false values and a patriotism that had been based on class exploitation. On paper the words can seem bitter and angry, but Poulenc finds the heartbreak in them: Marxist poet and château-dwelling composer (Poulenc owned a beautiful country house at Noizay near Tours) are united in song by a common French birthright. Fêtes galantes is an antidote to too much nationalistic selfpity. The nation that produced the coolly elegant courtiers of Watteau’s ‘Fêtes galantes’ in the reign of Louis XV, now finds itself in complete disarray with the onslaught of the Nazi invaders. There is not much elegance left in the French comedy of manners, but even if manners are thrown out of the window, comedy remains. Life under the occupation changed many things, but the institution of the cabaret song, sung at full tilt, vulgar and poetic at the same time, could never be anything but defiantly, irrepressibly French. Priez pour paix was written in the dark days of the Munich crisis. The words are by Charles, duc d’Orléans (1394–1465). Poulenc wrote: ‘I tried to give here a feeling of fervour and above all of humility (for me the most beautiful quality of prayer). It is a prayer for a country church.’ This is not only religious music; in a subtle way it strives to achieve a medieval hieratic atmosphere appropriate to the poet. In 1935 Poulenc re-worked the music of the sixteenthcentury composer Claude Gervais into his Suite française (both a chamber work and a piano suite). À sa guitare, also from this period, shows the hand of the tasteful pasticheur. All this music was, in fact, written for Margot, a play by Édouard Bourdet about Marguerite de Valois, although Poulenc chose to set lines by Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585). It was first sung by the famous singing actress Yvonne Printemps. The 4
orchestration of the song, as heard on Printemps’ famous recording of it, has since been lost. The last three songs on this disc show a lighter side of the composer. Toréador (words by Jean Cocteau, 1889–1963) is the only song that contemporaries agreed the vocally ungifted Poulenc sang better (and more nasally) than anyone else. It is a farrago of Hispanic-Venetian nonsense which powerfully evokes the music-hall. It is the kind of uproarious music that the teenage Poulenc (inspired by Maurice Chevalier) could improvise by the metre; he was to transform such raw material into more subtle evocation in the songs of his maturity. Nous voulons une petite sœur is a patter song of small musical substance, but immense charm. She who can survive the pronunciation hurdles of Madame Eustache’s Christmas list deserves a diction prize and a rest from the demands of The Hyperion catalogue can also be accessed on the Internet at www.hyperion-records.co.uk 5 importunate children. Les chemins de l’amour is another Yvonne Printemps song, this time written for Léocadia by Jean Anouilh (1910–1987). It gives us a glimpse of how easily Poulenc could have written ‘hits’ of the time, or film music like his colleague Georges Auric. This waltz is much sung in recitals these days and over-used as an applause-earning encore. After all, España is not the best of Chabrier, nor Boléro the best of Ravel, though both are masterpieces in their way. Poulenc would have regarded this charming trifle as a petit-four to be presented only after a substantial serving of his great mélodies. But as all gourmets and song enthusiasts know, an excellent petit-four is irresistible at the right time. GRAHAM JOHNSON © 1985 Poulenc’s own words are taken from Diary of my songs translated by Winifred Radford, published by Gollancz dedicated to the memory of our beloved teacher and friend PIERRE BERNAC (1899–1979) who in the singing of Poulenc set our generation an example difficult to emulate, impossible to better FL GJ 1985 If you have enjoyed this recording perhaps you would like a catalogue listing the many others available on the Hyperion and Helios labels. If so, please write to Hyperion Records Ltd, PO Box 25, London SE9 1AX, England, or email us at info@hyperion-records.co.uk, and we will be pleased to post you one free of charge.
Page 1 and 2: FRANCIS POULENC Voyage à Paris THE
Page 3: title to fame.’ With his innate u
Page 7 and 8: Regardez venir les cyclopes Look at
Page 9 and 10: Chanson 8 Les myrtilles sont pour l
Page 11 and 12: Je ne veux pas les lâcher I do not
Page 13 and 14: u Tu vois le feu du soir qui sort d
Page 15 and 16: Violon femme morganatique Violin mo
Page 17 and 18: Fêtes galantes cq On voit des marq
Page 19 and 20: C’est demin (jour de Saint Éscur
Page 21 and 22: Mais les dix-huit enfants en chœur
Page 23 and 24: « Lorsqu’il s’agit de Paris j
Page 25 and 26: universelle et révèle une profond
Page 27 and 28: Recorded in February 1984 Recording
Page 29: HELIOS CDH55366 POULENC VOYAGE À P

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