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Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) was the youngest and most successful of Les Six. Self-taught, he created an unmistakable personal style from piecing together wide-ranging influences.
“I know perfectly well that I am not one of those composers who made harmonic innovations, like Stravinsky, Ravel or Debussy… but I think there is room for NEW music which doesn’t mind using other people’s chords. Wasn’t that the case of Mozart and Schubert?”
Francis Poulenc with Wanda Landowska, © Getty.
Nogent-sur-Marne
Where he spends the first 25 summers and weekends of his life at his grand-parents house, and from where he holds "the happiest memories of my life. That was my idea of paradise; a great part of my music owes to this past.”
—Francis Poulenc
This working-class suburb of Paris delighted Poulenc with its guinguettes "and the smell of fries and cheap perfume."
"All my first compositions, and indeed everything one considers my amorous side, my exotic side comes from Nogent-sur-Marne, and from this kind of stale smell of fries, of dinghies, and of the blare of the distant bands. From the sympathy for the suburbs and the little boats on the Marne.”
—Francis Poulenc
“The bittersweet tinge of popular realm, and sadness beneath surface gaiety.”
His music evokes the tenderness of French Folklore, imbued with charm and simplicity, which prompted Maurice Ravel to say: “What I love about Poulenc is his ability to invent popular tunes!”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le déjeuner des canotiers, 1881.
Raoul Dufy, Régates, 1939.
1917
Poulenc met and developed ties with Paris's most important artists, Satie, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Paul Éluard at the performance of Parade.
"Satie succeeded in tying us together, and his music remains for me one of the dearest treasures in all of music."
"I believe it is with Apollinaire that I found my true melodic style."
"From 1912, I was fascinated by everything I read of his." —Francis Poulenc
Three songs from Le Bestiaire: nostalgia, lyricism
Le dauphin
L'écrevisse
La carpe
"You cannot realize how well you have been able to express the nostalgia and the lyricism of these admirable quatrains. And what touches me so deeply is that I could believe it is Guillaume's [Apollinaire] voice speaking these verses." Letter to Poulenc from Marie Laurencin, friend of Poulenc and lover of Apollinaire, often identified as his muse.
Illustrated by Raoul Dufy.
The dolphin
Dolphins, you play in the sea,
But the tide is always bitter.
Perchance, my joy may burst forth?
But life is ever so cruel.
The crawfish
Uncertainty, oh my delight.
You and I, we go onward
Just liket he crawfish,
Backwards, always backwards.
The carp
Within your environs, your pools,
Carp, you live such a long time!
Is it that Death has forgotten you,
Fish of woe?
IV. Musical style
—Diversity of styles and sources of inspiration, parody.
Two Piano Concerto Second Movement (Poulenc and Jacques Février, pianos)
Lucas and Arthur Jussen in Two-Piano Concerto, First movement, Second movement, Third movement.
—Simplicity of melodic clarity, tuneful (cf 18th cent), nursery songs feeling:
Valse; Hommage à Edith Piaf
—Down to earth, secular, non-academic: Capriccio (d'après le Bal Masqué) for 2 Pianos; Toccata; Sextet for Piano and winds
—Nostalgia, bittersweet tone of Nogent: Mélancolie (1940); Novelette #3 in E minor; Romanza (from Clarinet and piano sonata); Full Clarinet Sonata (1962)
—Poulenc plays his own piano music: Nocturnes, mouvements perpetuels, Improvisations; Deux Novellettes
About performance of his piano music, Poulenc insisted: "Hate rubato. No rubato. But pedal, yes, lots of pedal. Playing piano without pedal is like making sauce without butter!"
—Short interview followed by a performance with Poulenc at the piano and Denise Duval, soprano in a scene from "Les Mamelles de Tirésias," Salle Gaveau, Paris, 1959.
Francis Poulenc at the piano.
V. Poulenc et Les Ballets Russes: Les Biches, 1924
Full Ballet Recording: Overture followed by eight scenes. (NOT the short 5-movement suite revised for concert performance)
"A choreographic Fantasy" described as a "corps de ballet of flirtatious young women."
Choreography by Bronislava Nijinska
Original set design and costumes by Marie Laurencin
The mood of a Watteau painting, a modern day “Fêtes galantes.” It tinkered with elements of transgression, androgyny and homosexuality. Its lightness of mood and the soft pastel colors of Marie Laurencin’s costumes and sets softened the impact on the audiences of Les Biches’s overtones of sexual explorations.
Blend of 18th-century classicism, Rossini operas, 19th-century French operetta (Offenbach, Messenger), and the sounds of Paris popular entertainment. The action suggests an erotic promiscuity comparable to the stylistic promiscuity of the music.
The whole ballet is new, composed of classical movements given a modern twist by Nijinska, who viewed it as a twentieth-century equivalent of Les Sylphides.
Poulenc was absolutely delighted by Nijinska's work, writing to a friend: "The choreography of Les Biches is a masterpiece. It is ravishing from beginning to end."
The preface to the published score states:
"The action passes in a large, white drawing room with just one piece of furniture, an immense blue sofa. It is a warm summer afternoon and three young men are enjoying the company of sixteen lovely women. Just as in 18th-century prints, their play is innocent in appearance only."
Les Biches, vol. II, 1924. Collaborating artists:
Bronislava Nijinska, Francis Poulenc, Marie Laurencin, Jean Cocteau.
Marie Laurencin. Photos by Man Ray, 1923.
"To the admirable Njinska who made my "Biches" so beautiful, with my profound affection - Francis Poulenc 1923."
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