Poulenc = Music of the Day

I love the music of Francis Poulenc. There is something so tangible about his music. I just downloaded a recording of the cantata for double choir Figure humaine, composed in 1943. Now anyone who knows me probably remembers my slightly unhealthy obsession with his equally stunning song set Banalités. At any rate, I have moved on... the following is taken from the liner notes http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/55179.html of a Hyperion recording of Poulenc's choral works.

The dark years of the Second World War and the Nazi Occupation of Paris had, naturally, a profound effect on Poulenc. He remained in Paris but found his own means of resistance through the poems of Paul Éluard whom he had first met in 1917. Throughout the early years of the occupation Poulenc received hand-printed copies of the poems which make up the Figure humaine cr–do. These (in particular the final climactic ‘Liberté’ which had been smuggled into Algeria to be printed, the copies then dropped in their thousands over France by the RAF) became something of an anthem for the Resistance Movement. Poulenc was so fired with enthusiasm by Éluard’s poetry that he stopped work on everything else (including a violin concerto which was never to see the light of day) to compose a setting which could be performed as soon as France was liberated. He wrote Figure humaine in six weeks during the summer of 1943, had it printed in secret, and is said to have taken great pride in displaying a copy of it in his window as the allied troops marched through the streets of Paris. However, its first performance took place in London in January 1945, sung in English by the BBC Chorus conducted by Leslie Woodgate; it had to wait until 1947 for its French première under the conductor and musicologist Paul Collaer.

As for the cantata, listen to the whole thing but after you have finished put movement VII. and VIII. on repeat. Holy shit, I am not sure that there is anything more beautiful than the transition between the two movements.

Here is a translation:

VII.
The threat under the red sky
Came from below — jaws
And scales and links
Of a slippery, heavy chain

Life was spread about generously
So that death took his payment seriously
Without a second thought

Death was the God of love
And the conquerors in a kiss
Swooned upon their victims
While corruption gained courage

And yet, under the red sky
Under bloody appetites
Under dismal starvation
The cavern closed

The kind earth filled
The graves dug in advance
Children were no longer afraid
Of maternal depths I

And stupidity and madness
And vulgarity make way
For humankind and brotherhood
— No longer fighting against life —
For everlasting humankind

VIII.

On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand on the snow
I write your name

On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name

On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name

On the jungle the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name

On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name

On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name

On the fields the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name

On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name

On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name

On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name

On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name

On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name

On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name

On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name

On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name

On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name

On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name

On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name

On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name

By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you

LIBERTY