FRANCIS POULENC SELECTED SONG TEXTS by Poems by Apollinaire, Banville, Charles d’Orléans, Cocteau, Eighteenth-Century Anonymous, Jacob, Kangourou, Malherbe, Moréas, Racine, Radiguet, Ronsard, Shakespeare With International Phonetic Alphabet Transcriptions Word for Word Translations A Guide to French DictionCONT ENTS: PREFACE, iv CHAPTER 1 Makoke Kangourou ae 2 I~ Jean Cocteau 7 4 ML me Apollin Re Tee Perro 9 IV Pierre de Ronsard ; eee ne 70 V __ Eighteenth-Century Anonymous ME RRL Sa 81 VI Jean Moréas ans Seah ‘i 90. VIL Frangois de Malherbe... . ee 96 VIII Max Jacob j : 7 IX Théodore de Banville Senor ‘ M1 X Charles d'Orléans ...... siliet: 113 XL Raymond Radi Pe ie ae 1s XIL Jean Racine 17 XII Shakespeare..........+ 120 APPENDIX 1 122 BIBLIOGRAPHY 125 INDEX OF TITLES 128PREFACE This book will 70 songs composed for voice and piano by Francis Poulenc, written from texts now in the public domain. Each chapter groups all of the text settings by a particular Poet organized in chronological order and following the FP numbering from Carl B. Schmidt's catalogue of Poulene’s works. Each of the poems receives a phonetic transcription and a word-to- Word translation, The year of composition of the song, its written compass, and its dedication are specified at the beginning, A short essay follows, which first emphasizes any pertinent facts about the poem itself, then describes the song, its historical background, the circumstances of composition, and explores the relation and interconnection between the music and the poem, 1. BASICS OF FRENCH PRONUNCIATION! Vowels ‘American English vowels are predominantly low, back, and unrounded, with a strong tendency to migrate towards the center of the vowel spectrum when short and unstressed. Comparatively, the French vowels are high, fronted and rounded, and at the extreme of the vowel spectrum (with the exceptions of /a/ and /a/). q u Figure 1. Acoustic cbart of French vowels (in bold) superimposed over the acoustic chart of English vowels (in grayscale) in order to facilitate comparison The speech patterns of English and French are also opposite. The great Pierre Delattre published a detailed acoustic and articulatory comparison of the vowels /u/, /o/, /e/, and /i/,” which explains the differences between both languages. His results show that the English vowel is articulated in a constant movement. It never settles on 2 unique vowel sound. The typical English closed vowel starts with a rapid over-opening of lips, tongue and jaws, followed by a slow closing and finally over-closing. The French vowel reaches its goal at once, and does not overshoot in the final stage. In other words, an English speaker will say [biniitij] and [dasovumuuw], when a French speaker will say [biiiiiii] and [duuuuuuuu). In fact, diphthongization plays an important role in distinguishing English yowels that are too close on the vowel chart: thus, /v/, which ‘The following section relies upon Pierre Delatite's work in comparative phonetics Pierre Delatre, The French Review, Vol. 37, p. 64-76, October 1963,diphthongizes towards /aland /e/, which diphthongizes towards /i/, In addition, the energy of an English vowel is essentially decreasing, the maximum of intensity being towards the beginning. French vowels show no noticeable sign in decrease of intensity. On the contrary, in some cases they show signs of increase. An American learning French has to master three new sets of vowels. First are the three fiont-rounded vowels /y/, /e/, and /ce/. The combination of front and rounded is unknown to English, which only possesses a series of back-rounded vowels (/u/, /ol, and /a/). An English speaker has to aequire the new coordination of rounding lips while fronting the tongue. Second, the two a of French, /a/ and /a/, are much closer to each other and more in the center of the acoustic charts than their English counterparts /2e/ and /a/. The two English low vowels are more peripheral on the acoustic charts. English /e/ is much brighter and forward than the French /a/, and the English /a/ is much more back than the so-called French dark /a/ which is not, and should never be sung as, a back vowel. _ Lastly are the four nasal vowels /@/, /e7, A&/ and /0/. The nasal consonant that immediately follows a nasal vowel is always silent in French. This is a serious issue for English speakers who, im their own language, often nasalize vowels by anticipation when they are followed by a nasal consonant (as in can). onsonants French has only one consonant and one glide that are not found in English: /p/ and /y/. For (n’, an English speaker must avoid raising the tongue tip and making a sequence of /n/ + /i/. The middle of the tongue is in extended contact with the hard palate at once while the tip of the tongue stays behind the lower incisive. For /y/, the difficulty, as for the vowels /y/, fa/, and ice, is to coordinate lip-rounding with tongue-fronting, ‘There are yet significant features that distinguish consonants that are shared by French and. English. French tends to anticipate the vowel when English anticipates consonants. More precisely, French anticipate the position of a vowel in the articulation of the preceding consonant, For example, the /p/ of the French word pour is articulated into an /w shape by a French speaker, when the /p/ of the English word poor is articulated without any specific vowel shape by an English speaker. In conjunetion with vowel anticipation, the vocal folds start to vibrate during the consonants /d, /g/, and /b/. Hence the voicing of those consonants is stronger in French. There is also no silence or explosion of sound between the release of those consonants and the following vowel. The same is true about /t, /k/, and /p/. The vocal folds are abducting in preparation of the vowel. Therefore there is no air escaping between the release of the consonant and the vowel, and there is no diffusion of nasality like in English, Aspiration and affrication are non existent in French. Ocelusive consonants do not tend to affricate in French because of the clarity and the sharpness of the release of the consonants, Non- distinctive affrication mostly happens when English speakers pronounce dental plosive consonants before fronted vowels. [ti] and [dy] must never sound like (tsi) and (zy). In English, /p/, /t/, and /k/ are unaspirated only after an s or in unstressed position. An English speaker must leam to articulate unaspirated /p/ /t/, and /k/ at all time, even in initial and stressed positions All the consonants that are articulated by the tip of the tongue are more forward in French, This includes /v, /d’, /V, and /n/. In English, /V’is even more retroflex and back after a vowel thanin pre-vocalic position. An English speaker must be particularly cautious to make sure to pronounce a clear dental 1 in post-vocalic position as well Many English speakers articulate /s/ with the tip of the tongue lifted. In French, /s! is, always articulated with the tip of the tongue behind the lower teeth. It is more forward than the English /s/, more dental than alveolar. The same is true about /7/ Although English speakers are familiar with /s/ in intervoealie and final position, they must learn to use /3/ in initial position without preceding it with / ‘They must also learn to articulate /j/ in final position, as in [so'lej]. The key is to remember that a French consonant is always released, never fades out Guide to the French International Phonetic Alphabet LP.A. French LP.A. Equivalent Symbol Example —_Transeription Vowels i finir (fini) Italian vino el ae [e'te} French /i/ and /e/: The tip of the tongue is more fronted and the body of the tongue more forward than their English counterparts. Consequently the pharyngeal cavity is slightly wider. Jel réver [re've] English red The phoneme /e/ is the only English vowel that matches its French equivalent perfec’ fal até (ka’fe] Spanish casa ‘The French bright /a/ is similar to a Spanish /a/, although the tongue is slightly more fronted. la! pas (pa) German ach ‘The French dark /a/ is never a back vowel. Ia port (por) ‘The French open /o/ is more forward than its American cot fof chaud [fo] ful bouguet —_[bu’ke] Italian una The French close /o/ and /u/ require more lip rounding and are more back than their American counterparts. Mixed vowels fyf salut [sa'ly] German kif ‘The French /y/ requires a bit more lip rounding and tongue fronting than its German counterpart. ‘ol feu fo) German schon foe coeur [keer]Although French and German fo! are identi of the tongu: I, the French oe) requires a more significant lowering jan the German /ce/, in addition to a similar lip opening, E Caduc, or Obsolete F. fee haute Cote} al dame [ damo) Although always in final position of'a word, both are unstressed at all times, /a/is used only before a breath or a casura, otherwise (ce! is used. "When it [the muted ¢] falls, itis not diminished and reduced, but suppressed completely; when it remains, its pronunciation is as full as unaccented vowels."* y of the Nasal yowels fs matin {ma'té] fee aucun [oka (al amant {a'ma] i bon {bs} ots It becomes clear by looking at the vowel chart that only /&/ and /oi/ are close enough to their oral ‘counterparts to share their articulatory features, /@/ is too far from French /a/ to have anything in common with it, Both /@/ and /6/ require a tongue lowering similar to //. The difference between (@/ and /@/ is one of lip rounding: /@/ is akin to /o/, and /o! is akin to /o/. Consonants Figure 2, Places of articulations 1. Dental, 2. Alveolar, 3. Post-alveolar, 4. Pre-palatal 5. Palatal, 6. Postero-palatal, 7. Velar, 8, Uvular, 9. Labial, 10, Apical, 11. Predorsal (Antero-dorsal), 12, Dorsal, 13, Postero-dorsal, 14, Pharyngeal Maurice Grammont, La prononeiation francaise (Paris: Librairie Delagrave, 1914), 105Ocelusives Bilabial oe Palatal | Palato-velar Unvoiced P t k Voiced b a 9 Nasal m n n ° Table T, Occlusive oF sop cansonants tn French to beau [bo] bowl Jp! pas [pa] spa idl @abord ——_[da'bor] Mazda il wot {to} stop ‘gi sai loc} gate hd ealme {'kalma} skate French /g/ and /k/ are mediopalatal (articulated on the middle of the hard palate) when theit English counterparts are velar (articulated on the soft palate). fo mais Ime] mail ial neut [nef] nothing fl oignon [o'nd] new in/ touring (turin) ring, Fricatives me z Predorso- | Apico- dani. | Predorse- | post-alveotar-| alveolar Dore | pharyngeal (vibrant unvoiced | f s f h voiced |v 2 5 ce x = Table, Fricative consonanis in French (g fee [fe (0)] faith wf voix [wa] voice (sf hausser ——_[o'se] floss tet ser [o'ze] rose 0 chez fel shape ff ie see] rouge Both (7 and /3/ require lip rounding in French, fel amoureux —_[amu'ra] English post-stress intervocalic /t/ as in water sf cigarette ——_[siga' seta] ‘The French r is to be used in classical singing only when specifically requested by the composer. ini ha! {hal halApproximants Apico | Mediodorso- | Postdorso- alveolar | mmediopala velar lateral) ez = Non-labial I j labial w ee ec Table 3. Approximant consonants in French, Ww lent (la) slow It may seem surprising to find /V/ in the same category as the glides /j/, /y/, and /w/, but approximant consonants are produced by a narrowing of the vocal track that allows the air to flow free of turbulence, iy briller [brite] yes iwi quoi [kwa] quack ‘y puis ipuil 2. ABOUT THIS STUDY Word-by-Word Translation ‘The order of the words in the English translation corresponds to the order of the words in the original French poem. For example this line from Dans fe jardin d'Anna: py om 291d zeku'te Wd le brat dy —_krepys'kyla Puis mous aurions ——_éeouté Tongtemps tes bruits du crépuscule ‘Then we would have listen forlong the sounds of dusk ‘When necessary a third Line clarifies the meaning of a phrase. The next example is from La grenouillére: © ‘ete kome ‘fu Et bétes comme chou. And thick like cabage Dim-witted In the case of negatives, or when verbs and pronouns are intricately ordered, they are translated as ‘group in order to simplify matters. Thus the following phrase from Air grave will not be translated as na oma ree'puse = ‘pag divine —na'tyro Ne me repousse pas, © divine nature Not me repel not 0 divine nature but rather as ‘nee mee ree"pusce pa 9 di'vine ——na'tyra Ne me repousse pas, © divine nature Do not repel me, © divine natureOpen syllabification prevails largely over close syllabification in French. When close syllabification occurs at the junction of words, the symbol _helps the English speaker to link up the ending consonant to the following syllable. One must never compromise the quality of a vowel by anticipating a following consonant. no tramu re re'gle par_ le ‘kama ——_ze'twalo Notre amour est réglé par les calmes étoiles Our love is ruled by the calm stars Accented syllables are designated by the symbol ’. The syllable count refers to the way a word is pronounced in normal speech. The accent of a word does not shift to the muted F if the latter is reinstated, Its value is one of an unaccented syllable. Nevertheless, one must remember that in speech the accent is not made by intensity, but rather by length. Since word accentuation invariably falls on the final syllable of a word, very few ambiguities arise. In the next example, it would make no sense to accentuate the last syllable of embaumons, since nous is too intrinsically linked to the verb. The accentuation shifts to nous. dbomo mu Embaumons- nous; Let us embalm ourselves; ‘Typically, it is always possible to make a slight pause after an accent without altering the meaning of the phrase. When words hold together as one expression or the expression of one thought and are inseparable, only the last word of the group will bear an accent, 1H In Freneh, the letter / is either aspirated or muted. In either case it is not pronounced. There is no liaison or clision possible into any word beginning with an aspirated fh. Yet liaisons are Permissible into a word beginning with a muted hi, as long as the grammatical context permits it ‘One has to verify each word in a French dictionary. A symbol (*) precedes words beginning with an aspirated /t, When there is no symbol to indicate aspirated f, one must look at the phonetic transcription which will add an apostrophe in place of the h. (*hant, or haut {‘o]) The use of an apostrophe is not a conventional symbol to indicate aspirated / and won't be used in this volume. un homme (@° nome] ‘un hautbois [oe 0 bwa) Yet, / may be pronounced as [h] in the interjection ha! he! or hou! {ha he hu] 3. ALAN SUAGE IN CONSTANT EVOLUTION ‘The following section is an abridged version of a survey of the performance of French-speaking singers on recordings and their treatment of liaison and vocalic harmonization published in the Journal of Singing of May/June 2008,* Martin Neron, Singing in French: berween theory and! practice, Journal of Singing 64, no. $ (May/June 2008): 595-605, The author thanks Dr, Richard Dale Sjoerdsma for his collaboration withthe article,xi Eyolution of liaisons The history of modern liaisons looks back to the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, where final consonants were progressively dropped in popular speech. Testimonies from contemporary grammarians corroborate this fact: “About everywhere else, finale consonants were silenced at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and one pronounced ‘ave,’ ‘soy,’ “fi,” ‘mo’ (but *beaucoup’) according to Palsgrave (p.24) ; ‘clé” (clef), ‘ro’ (rast). ‘heancou' (beaucoup), according to H. Etienne, at the end of the century”. To counteract the phenomenon and preserve the voicing of consonants, the grammarians agree that in sustained speech, “they are pronounced in liaisons before 2 vowel, as well as before a pause, but dropped before consonant.”* Despite their effort, throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the majority of final consonants became silent in front of vowels, It was inappropriate then to execute liaisons, even between closely related words. “In the seventeenth century, the most educated persons spoke currently without liaisons, after the testimony of the best grammarians cited in Thurot (1883): vene(z) ici, je sui(s) assez bien, yoyon(s) un peu.”” It all changed in the nineteenth century. The use of liaisons became a mean to show off the ability to spell, and the number of liaisons increased as the century unfolded. It hit its peak within the upper and aristocratic classes in the last quarter of the century. Littré, in his préface to the Dictionnaire de la Jangue francaise (1866) witnesses a phenomenon in evolution. Of course, as always when a grammarian comments on a linguistic trait in transition, his view is conservative and for him a higher level of speech does not necessarily imply more liaisons: There is still a point where our pronunciation tends to branch out from our fathers and ancestors, I mean the people of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries: itis the liaison of consonants. Formerly one would carry out a much lesser amount of liaisons; everyone remembers hearing older people pronounce not the Eti-z-Unis as we do it, but the Eté-Unis fetayni], To this trend, I have nothing to object, but that it must be restricted to the principle of the tradition, which, in speech, docs not extend liaison beyond a certain number of cases settled by practice that, in declamation, eradicate liaisons in all the cases where they would be harsh or offensive. One must conform to this saying of abbe d’ Olivet [Picrre-Joseph Thoulier d'Olivet, dit Iabbé d Olivet 1682- 1768 |; ‘the conversation of the honest citizens is filled with voluntary hiatus that are s0 authorized by usage, that if one would speak differently, it would be pedantic or provincial’,* Bor the same year Littré wrote those lines, Maurice Grammont comments in 1914 on the decline of liaisons that has already taken place in speech. His insight only confirms how much the perception has changed within two generations, although both linguists share one opinion: they disapprove of the overuse of liaison: The general rule is quite simple: one makes all liaison within a groupe ryrhmique, one docs not make liaison from a groupe rydhmique to a following one. In other words, ‘one observes liaisons from an unaccented syllable into the next syllable; one does not ‘observe liaisons after an accented syllable. One will say: Ces petits enfiants / ont perdu leur chemin; Christine Marchello-Nizia, La langue francaise aux XIV" et XV" sidcles (Pacis; Armand Collin, 2005), 109 Mireille Huchon, Le francais de la renaissance, 2nd ed. (Paris: Presse universitaire de France, 1998), 91 Philippe Martinon, Comment on prononce le francais (Paris: Larousse, 1913), 356 Cited in Pierre Fnerevs, La liaison avec et sans enchainoment (Paris: Sevil, 1988), 284mais ces petits / enfants is not French, and ces petits enfants ont perdi is even worse This rule was still regularly observed in conversation thirty years ago [in 1884]. It is nowadays [in 1914] still aimost absolute in reading and oratory speech; but in casual conversation, one observes fewer and fewer liaisons. The new generations tend to keep only the liaisons that hold a grammatical function, particularly those that make the distinction between singular and plural. One would not be able to fix a set of les...above all beeause the phenomenon is in thorough evolution. One can say that cons between groupe ryihimique upset almost right away and reveal a person either conceited, lacking education, or provincial, whereas liaisons within a groupe rythmique never disturb, even when they are not necessary.’ Philippe Martinon (1913) is uncompromising and goes as far as harshly criticizing the Practice of the revered Comédie-Frangaise: “But the actors especially overexert strangely Liaisons], either because of hypercorrection, or to make themselves better understood, and that at the Comédie-Prangaise as well as other places, more than other places, alas! ... And foreigners go to the Comédic-Frangaise to learn to pronounce! | agree, except for the subject of liaisons.” Femand Carton (1974) comments on what has become of liaisons: “the reduction to the minimum of liaisons is characteristic of popular and familiar speech. Intonation and ‘accent d’insistance,” demareating gestures, favor the progressive elimination of optional liaisons in contemporary French." Carton, whose approach remains objective, uses a simple phrase to demonstrate a hierarchy of different levels of language among liaisons. The sentence Des ltomimes importants ont attend offers the possibility for four liaisons: the first one between an article and its noun, Observing solely that liaison is appropriate in a conversation between friends or family: Des hommes / importants / ont /attendu. ‘The second liaison in rank is the one within the verbal group, and corresponds to a conversation between colleagues: Des hommes / importants / ont gttendu The third liaison in rank, between the plural noun and its following adjective, would not normally be made unless the speaker has the opportunity to see the words written out. Such a liai appropriate for a public speech or national televis Des hommes importants / ont gitendu. The last liaison left, between imporranis and ont, is inappropriate in modem versification, Iti only ‘maintained in classical versification as an indirect liaison, for an adjective cannot be linked to a verb,'* Pierre Enerevé (1988) codifies a new tendency in liaison: indirect liaisons. These are liaisons wherein the final consonant of a word is pronounced at the end of the word and separated from the following vowel by a glottal stop. “Indirect liaison is today an uncontested linguistic fact. Our survey allows us to think that the phenomenon has become a grammatical fact during the Seventies, at least among the professional of public speech, which has allowed all the French to Maurice Grammont, La prononciation rancaixe (Peis: Librairie Delagrave, 1914), 130 Martinon, 357, 385 Femnand Carton, Introduction d la phonétique du francais (Pers: Bortas, 1974), 219 = Wid, 201familiarize themselves unconsciously with these pronunciations. Today, indirect liaisons appear in full growth among the majority of highly educated orators.”! Alain Thomas (1998) acknowledges the same phenomenon, in addition to a newer development A number of new pronunciations, like the sounding of the final consonant of the words but, fait, cotit, and quand, even in front of [a word beginning with a] consonant, within the political elite, suggest that the writing holds a non negligible influence over the pronunciation of final consonants. It makes sense that the disappearance of liaisons in specch throughout the twentieth century on one side has triggered a reverse behavior in sustained specch on the other. Sounding final consonants that are unnecessary was qualified as being “pedantic” by d’Olivet (1737) and Lite (1 866), and as “conceited” by Grammont (1914). At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the sounding of a highest proportion of final consonants in liaisons or even in front ofa word beginning with another consonant has become a trademark of political leaders and the intellectual elite, It has lost its negative connotation. It is now perceived as a prerequisite for scholarship and leadership. Groupe Rythmique or Phonetic Word The notion of rhythmic group is recognized and introduced in the carliest treatise on modern French pronunciation. Grammont borrowed the term from Edouard Bourciez (1889), Pierre Fouehé (1959) labels it accent de groupe. Fouché quotes Léonce Roudet’s Eléments de Phonotique générale (1910) as part of his discussion on the subject What characterizes the French Language is not its word accentuation, but its group ‘accentuation. The French sentence lets itself cut out into a succession of groups that show very little respect to the individuality of the word, and “which cach group creates an impression of phonetic unity, to the point that those who ignore the language believe a group to be a single word.”"® Femand Carton (1974) uses the term mot phonérique (phonetic word) together with groupe accentuel, He relates the phonetic word to a syntagma, a unity of syntax, i.e. in a given sentence, the subject, the verb and the objects, with their relevant determiners. Jean-Claude Milner and Francois Regnault in their essay Dire le vers (1987) elaborate a definition that corresponds best to the features of the phonetic word in lyric diction, “It will rely on the concurrence of three uni ria: in general, a phonological [phonetic] word is what constitutes at once a flow unit, a grammatical unit, significance unit.”" The following description respects the guidelines established in Milner and Regnault’s essay and recognizes four categor of phonetic word: 1. Nominative group Noun, its determinets (articles, adjectives placed before), its complements beaux yeux aux flammes douces (“Puisque l’aube grandit,” P. Verlaine) des couples blonds d'amants heureux (L ile heureuse, E. Mikhael) tes yeux levés au ciel (Soir, A. Samain) Enerevé, 271 Alain Thomas, “La liaison ct son enseignement: des madéles orthogpiques a la réalitélinguistique,’ in The Canadian Modern Language Review, 54,4 {Kune 1998), 549 Pierre Fouché, Trait le prononciation frangatve (Paris: Klincksieck, 1969), LVIL Jean-Claude Milner and Frangois Regnault, Dire le vers (Pats: Seal, 1987), 28-9xiv Verbal group Verb, its determiners (auxiliaries, pronouns, adverbs, negation, etc.) its closely linked complements (predicates, direct and indirect objects, straightforward objects of the preposition) J'ai longtemps habité (La vie aniérieure, C. Baudelaire) Je chanterai des airs ingénus (“Puisque 'aube grandit,” P. Verlaine) et porte au coeur un humide éclair (Le colibri, Leconte de Lisle) 3. Adjective group Adjective, its determiners and objects douloureusement incertain (“¥'allais par des chemins perfides”, P. Verlaine) ‘beau comme une sombre rose (Cantique & I"épouse, A. Jounet) isolés dans l'amour ainsi gu'en un bois noir (“N’est-ce pas 2". P. Verlaine) 4, Prepositional group Preposition, its linked nominative group dans le golfe aux jardins ombreux (L ‘ile heureuse, E. Mikhaél) Pros des remparts de Séville (Carmen, Meilhac and Halevy) vers les vastes cieusx enchantés (Le jet d'eau, C. Baudelaire) A phonetic word can also correspond to a single word. For example, in Hébé s‘éloigne (Hébé, Ackermann), Hébé is a nominative group and s'éloigne is a verbal group. In vont une a une (Les fhewres, Mauclair), vont is a verbal group, une dune an adjective group (it is neither a direct nor an indirect object to the verb). One grammatical unit may hold two significant units, as does le temps des lilas / et le temps des roses. They are treated as two phonetic words, In the examples cited above, every liaison must be maintained: beaux yeux aux flammes —_douces bo za 0 flame: duso J'ai longtemps habité ge leita rabi'te douloureusement — incertain dulurozce'ma reser té dans le golfe aux jardins ~——ombreux da ee gal, fo garde w'bre Understanding the notion of phonetic words will benefit a better insight on liaisons. Mandatory liaisons When listening to French si s, one will notice that they are remarkably consistent in ‘observing all the obligatory liaisons within phonetic words. Yet when it comes to liaisons between ‘two phonetic words, which should be forbidden, some inconsistencies stand out, and there are instances where French singers seem to erratically ignore rules that are inherent to the basic grammatical structure of their own language. It is clear that a third factor comes into play and prevails over the rule.xv Flexional Consonants Georges Le Roy labeled consonants that bear a grammatical function in liaison, flexional ‘consonants.'” Few linguists have elaborated on the subject because such categorization makes a difference for the treatment of liaison only in vers er and Regnault enumerate them: “there are liaisons that maintain a consonant with grammatical funetion; the s or the x of the plural, the s [or 2] of the second person, the t of the third person, the r of the infinitive,”"* For example, the liaison in Je sens au clair soleil (“Automne.” Fauré) links the s of the first person, The liaison in Que J’on yoir_aw matin trembler (*Villanelle,” Berlioz) indicates the third person of the singular. The liaison will sound natural to the French ear, however omitting it would enlighten the structure of the text and help the listener understand au clair soleil and au matin as inversions right away, Both options are defensible, and the result will reflect the singer's attentiveness to the grammar." With the exception of the /z/ of the plural, all flexional consonants entail a verb form. Consequently, maintaining the liaison with the f of muguet, in pour cueillir le muguet_au bois (“Villanelle,” Berlioz), is not acceptable. The 1 cannot qualify as a flexional consonant. Besides, aw bois is the object ta the verb irons, which is the first person of the plural. Observing the liaison with the ¢ in Sur moi fa nuit immense (“Sur les lagunes,” Berlioz) is more tolerable. Even though mut is also a noun, this time itis the subject of the phrase, and its ¢ matches with its third person. One only has to replace muit with sourcil and try to link sowrcil immense to realize the preeminence of the flexional consonant. ‘The r of the infinitive has a lesser influence than / on liaisons. French singers maintain the liaison when it oceurs within @ phonetic word, but generally omit it between two phonetic words Hence Aimer ¢ loisir, aimer et mourir (“Invitation au voyage,” Duparc). In contrast, the s or x of the plural (/z/) is the strongest and foremost among the flexional consonants, and the only one that can outweigh grammar and even logic. In ‘Villanelle,’ few French singers have recorded dif ses vers_au rebord du nid, en paniers enlacant nos doigts, and sous nos pieds égrénant les perles, while in Chansons madécasses some French singers have recorded Le Jit de feuilles.est préparé. These liaisons are forbidden. One cannot link a plural noun to an unrelated verb or preposition. On the other hand, a liaison connecting a plural noun to its corresponding verb exemplifies the higher level of speech required for singing. Such liaison is the only instance where all French singers agree to maintain a liaison between two different phonetic words, as in mes pieds_om oubliés (L'horizon chimérique, Fauré), Tant nos membres étaient confondus, and Ex mes sandales étaient lourdes (Trois chansons de Bilitis, Debussy), Consonants that do not bear a grammatical function, /k/ and /p/, meet with little tolerance when it comes to liaison. Their occurrence is scarce in poetry, since their voicing sounds unnatural and awkward to a French ear. The line Je carnage fut long et terrible from the second Chansons madécasses displays one example of compulsory liaison with the sound /k/. French singers do not observe that liaison, Georges Le Roy, mraité pratique de la diction francaise (Pacis: Delaplane, 1911) Milner and Regnault, 61 In his introduction to Dire e vers, Milner writes thatthe great cighteenth-centu Lecouvreur cok advice delaim her oe, ron the foremost rammran of hor tine, (12) " French actress Adrienne César Chesneau Dumarsas,xvi French singers demonstrate a surprisingly strong consensus regarding liaisons. The divergences on the matter result mainly in their choice to give flexional consonance precedence over the grammatical syntax and vice versa. It is impossible to tell however if their choices are led by their instinct, or if they made their decisions being fully aware of the grammatical structure of the text. It becomes obvious that for the English-speaking student, the learning and memorization of sets of rules alone are deficient, and the thorough understanding and recognition of the ‘grammatical syntax in French is essential to achieve a competence in carrying out liaisons and elisions. Words are rarely spoken by popular characters in mélodies, but when it happens, the level of speech needs to be lowered a rank of two, therefore affecting the options for liaisons and putting restraints to the voicing of the plural. For example the line ses petits pas fourchus / altérnent corume des trous dans un manteau blane from Lougs' Le tombeau des natades, set by Debussy, or Les ennemis / ont tout pris from Noél des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons also by Debussy. Here the words are quotations spoken by an ingénue and children. Inexperienced and unschooled, they ‘would not know of mai such liaison, above all in casual speech. In this case, maintaining the liaison brings the language to a level that contradicts the character of the song. French singers have recorded both alternatives equally. Rejection of vocalic harmonization Vocalic harmonization is a relatively recent development of French speech. Linguists make no mention of the phenomenon before the twentieth century. Maurice Grammont (1914) introduced the term in his eminent essay La Prononciation Francaise.’ Throughout his treaty Fouché (1959) always specifies, when explaining a case of vocalic harmonization, that it correspond to colloquial speech and does not affect sustained diction. His perception reflects the general agreement among linguists. Fernand Carton (1974) summarizes, “Vocalic harmonization in French, which only play in open syllables, is related to what is occurring in Turk or in Finnish, although communication is not affected: it is only a tendency, which constitutes a criteria for the level of language In French an unaccented vowel is abridged and an accented vowel elongated. Georges Straka concluded that “vowels of small or medium aperture, /i/and /t/ up to (el, a and /o/, become more close when they are elongated [in speech], while vowels of large aperture /e/, /oe/, or /0/ as well as the nasals /@/, /o®/ and /4/ will become more open.” Therefore /e/ and /a/ will become more open when unaccented, and /e/ and /ce/ will close. Vocalic harmonization is a direct consequence of this phenomenon, Etait [ete] sounds like iat [ete] and laisser [lese] like désser [lese]. It is a trait of colloquial speech, as mentioned above, ‘When proper speech is restored, as in lyric diction, the true value of the vowel must be restored. It is clear that for words that are archetypal in poetry like aimer and baiser, the use of vocalic harmonization causes no problem. A majority of French singers (80%) have recorded baiser as (beze] and aimer as feme]. Such a pronunciation is time-honored even in proper levels of speech. Listening to recordings of French singers born within the past sixty years, the tendency to > Grammont, 13,41 Carton, 87. Georges Straka, “Observations de phondtiqu senérale, appliquées la phonétique histor ue des langues romanes,” in Zeischrif fr Phonesik und allegemeine Sprachissenschafi 12 (1959), 277xvii {ignore voealic harmonization in singing becomes the norm. All the singers pronounce des [de] or les [le], apaiser [ape'ze], conaissez [kone' se], éveillez [eve'je], cheveu [foe'vo}, and half of them pronounce baiser [be'ze]. The majority of them (66%) pronounce heureux {ce't0}, Despite very few exceptions, French singers do not maintain vocalic harmonization on recordings. This is especially true of French mélodie, aristocratic art among all. In opera, vocalic harmonization will be relevant to typify an ingénue or any character from the popular and middle classes. The aristocratic characters would then stand out more efficiently. For the English-speaking speaker, the difficulty lies mainly in the ability to recognize yocalic harmonization in the dictionary, where the pronunciation is given according to the way in which it is most commonly spoken and realizing that it does not correspond to the appropriate pronunciation in singing. E muet The French muted e cannot be treated as an unstressed vowel. When maintained in lyric diction, its sound is unaffected by the surrounding vowels. “When it [the muted e] falls, itis not diminished and reduced, but suppressed completely; when it remains, its pronun unaecented vowels.” ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. I wish to sincerely thank the following persons for their invaluable help and support throughout the completion of this book. Dr. Jeffrey Langford and Dr. Nils Vigeland of Manhattan School of Music, who guided me in its early stage, my father Raymond and my mother Louise Chiricota, my sisters Sonia and Josée thanks to whom T never had to use interlibrary loan, William Leyerle whose trust and support allows me to share my work, and specially Corey-James Crawford, who has read and corrected this book more times than humanly possible, and has challenged me to refine and sharpen my thoughts while keeping me sane. Grammont, 105Refinement almost always costs ieir popular instinct 10 our ‘own modern musicians, When refinement and popular instinet combine together, a nat on finally owns its music Francis Poulene, Le cog parisien (1920)2 Kangourou 1 MAKOKO KANGOUROU “Honoloulou” is introduced as a poem composed by Makoko Kangourou in his native tongue on 11 January 1892 in Les poésies de Makoko Kangourow (1910) This collection of poems ‘was in fact written by Marcel Prouille' in collaboration with Charles Moulié. In the foreword to the book, both authors sign a fictitious biography of their made-up poet, which sets the tone for the remainder of the volume: Bom in 1870 in the Republic of Liberia in Africa, of a former candidate to the presidency of the so-called republic, and of a hippopotamus hunter's favorite slave, Makoko Kangourou had an ordinary life, filled with few events and, actually, pretty short. Because his father was a considerable personality (he was allowed to kill and eat white people without the authorization of the government), Makoko Kangourou was, according to the Liberian traditions, sent to Paris as soon as he reached seven years old. In Paris, under the supervision of an old German maid and, of an En; interpreter, he attended the classes of the small Lycée Condorcet: his teachers pretend that he never was an unrivalled student, however quiet; and at seventcen he was still in sixth grade, But everyone knows that the best poets have not always been good and hard working pupils. At twenty, Makoko Kangourou started to read our authors: Sand, Bertrand de Ventadour, Verlaine, Benserade, Gautier, Gamier, and Hugo. Right away he felt the need to write too. He wrote a few poems, showed them to his friends and sent one to one of the leading figures of the time, who congratulated him. ... At bwenty-five years old, our poet left for Liberia where he was going to die, shortly after his return. He took most of his poems away with him, and we owe to the benevolence of one of his most intimate friends to publish the ones that we will read further. This is all that we can say on this peculiar figure, sympathetic and twofold, which is Makoko Kangourou's figure. Now, may the reader make his own judgment; our task is accomplished. MP. and Ch. M. RAPSODIE NEGRE (FP 3) IIL. Honoloulou” Erik Satie June 1917° EB onolulu poti lama Honoloulou’, pott lama"! Marcel Prouille (1891-1934) later published a few books of poetry under the pseudonym of Marcel Ormoy: Impressions (1911), Le jour et Vombre (1912), Marquises (1913), and the novel La conguete (1921). *"_Poulene chose the poem in Les poésies de Makoko Kangourou (1910), “With regards to my Rapsodie négre its premicte did not go without a hitch, This work, a reflection of the mode for the ar! négre that raged since 1912 under the impulse of Apollinaire, comprised four instrumental movements and one vocal interlude. The latter was ‘composed on a fake Negro poem [writen] by a friend who signed Makoko Kangourou. One sees the result from here! At the last moment, the singer gave his notice, saying that it was too silly and that he did not want to be taken for a sucker. Without sny warning, I bad to sing this interlude myself concealed by a large music stand.” (Francis Poulenc, ‘Moi et mes anis [Peris: La Palatine, 1963], 50-1.) According t0 a letter to Edouard Souberbielle in Myriam Chiménes,ed., Francis Poulenc: Correspondance 1910-1963 (Pati: Fayart, 1994), 6. Honoloulou is said 10 be the name of Makcko Kangourou’s sweetheart. (In Les podsies de Makoko Kangourou, [Patis, Dotbon ainé, 1910), 29.)Kangourou onotula onolulu Honoloulou, Honofoulou, kati moko mori bol Kati moko, mosi bolow rataku ira pokama Ratakou ——sira, polama vatakuzi —— motimazu Watakousi —motimasou, etfepango » etfepanga Etehepango etchepanga kaka nun nunuragga Jololuluma fama su kaka nounou ——_nounouranga, Jolo, Iuluma, tama sou pata tabo bananalu Pata tabo, bananalou mandes ——_gola gleles i krus Mandes, ——Golas, Gleles i Krous.’ banabaly ito kusku poti luma Bananalou ito kouskou, —poti__Iuma, onolulu Honoloulow Rapsodie négre is the first of Poulenc’s works to be performed in public, on 11 December 1917, The concert was organized by soprano Jane Bathori who was assuming the position of Director of the Thédtre du Vieux-Colombier during the stay of Jacques Copeau, its regular direetor, in New York.’ Rapsodie négre consists of five movements: I. “Prélude,” Il. “Ronde,” IIL “Honoloulou — interméde vocal,” IV. “Pastorale,” V. “Finale.” All movements, with the exception of III, are scored for flute, B” clarinet, two violins, viola, cello and piano. “Honoloulou” is written for male voice and piano, while the voice joins the chamber ensemble in “Finale,” The absence of lyricism and of motivic development generated by the repetitive nature of both the vocal line and the accompaniment displays the influence of Erik Satie’, to whom the work is dedicated. Petit loup is a term of endearment in French and lama is French for lama, Por! lama may address Makoko Kangourou's sweetheart * Mandcs. Golas, Glélés and Krous are the names of diverse tribes of Liberia, (In Les poésies de Makoko ‘Kangourou, (Paris, Dorbon ainé, 1910}, In eter to Piesre Margarics of 16 January 1918, Roger Martin du Gard wrote, “I don’t know much about the Colombier and Jane Bathori. Great, undeniable success... I is presented very simply, intimately. Seyle chamber ‘music... As a whole it gives the impression of enlighten amateurs, who please each other and please their fticads.” Cited in Jacques Copeau, Correspondance Jacques Copeau Roger Martin du Gard, ed. Claude Steard (Pars: Gallimard, 1972), 1: 268, fe for example the song Daphénéo,4 Cocteau u JEAN COCTEAU Jean Cocteau was bom in 1889, the year of the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower. He became one of the most versatile poets of the twentieth century. He categorized his work as poctry (30 books of poems), poetry of novel (6 novels), poetry of theater (17 plays), critical poctry (over 35 essays and diaries), graphic poetry (books of drawings and live frescoes), and cinematographic poetry (6 movies and dialogues). He played a key role in the advent of the Groupe des Six and held a stimulating influence on Poulenc in his early years. Poulenc came back to Cocteau’s text at the cend of his life, setting La voix humaine and La dame cle Monte-Carlo for Denise Duval. COCARDES! (FP 16) 4 Georges Auric? April-August 1919 Cyto Ay Cato G's yar 13 ‘keer le lun flee'risoe dy kroté dor Use ton cur. Les clowns fleurissent du crottin aor Use your heart. The clowns flourish with dung of gold dormir kw dor tej & oy: Dormir, un coup orteils: on vole. Tosleep. a kick withthe toes: one ies. vole vu gue ravek_mo'a ‘Volez- vous jouer avee moa” “Would you play with me” moa'bite: “dame de la krwa'ble—_kara'vano Moabite Dame de la_eroixbleue, Caravane Moabite, Lady from the — blue-cross, Caravan. va'nij pwavre —-KOfi'tyre «doe tama'ré Vanille, —Poivre, —Confitures. de tamarin, Vanilla Pepper, Jam of tamarind, Poulene composed two versions of Cocardes: one for male voiee, cornet, violin, trombone, triangle and bass dear, and one for male voice and piano. Tenor Alexandre Sacha Koubitzky premiered it on 20 Febmuary 1920 in the instrumenil version, at the first spectaclesconcert organized by Cocteau, Cocteau provided the poems to Poulenc They were first published in the magazine Dada 4-5 on 1S May 1919 under the title 3 pieces facies pour pettes mains easy pieces for smali hands). “Those songs have this particularity, which is that words and music were written simultaneously.” (Letter to Paul Collaer of 21 January 1920, in Myriam Chiménes, ed, Francis Ponenc: Correspondance [910-1963 [Paris: Fayzrt, 1994], 103.) French composer (1899-1983). He was one of Les SixCocteau 5 ma'té ku lee pops musta, Marin. Cou le — pompon _moustaches.’ Sailor. Neck the pompom moustache. Mandolin. linole’s ma —_trdpee ‘loej mer’ si Linolum en —_trompe'cril merci Linoleum in make-believe thank you. Fake carpet thank you sine’ma _nu'velee myza Cinéma nouvelle muse. Cinema new muse. 2. Bonne d'enfant® C410 Ac te’kla no “trage ‘dor ‘pipe kar'no otro notre age d'or’ Pipe Carnot Joffre” Tecla our age of gold Pipe Carnot Jofire soft a “tutes. per'so ne'ja de nevral'si J’ offre & toute personne ayant des névralgies I offer to all person having neuralgias. si'raf ‘nos bese gys'tava_ Girate nove Un bonjour de Gustave. Giraffe wedding A _— greeting from Gustave ave mari'ja de gu'no roai'jera Ave Maria de Gounod —_Rosigre ‘Ave Maria of — Gounod Caste woman The image of the silor as a symbol of French identity is recurrent in Cocteau’s early letters end works. He writes «les moustaches du matelot» [the moustache ofthe sailor] in Tumbour, 4 This poem is published under the title Enjamde rroupe asthe third poem ofthe Cacardes, Técla could be a reference to the famous jewelry on Rue de fa Paix established in 1912. Rue de la Paix is one ‘of the world's most fashionable shopping streets, Maric Francois Sadi Carnot (1837-1894), president of France from 1888 to his assassination by Santo Jeronimo Caserio. Cocteau writes «Le président Camet, Joffte» in Tambour. Field marshal Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffte (1852-1931). Cocteau has written an earlier poet entiled Hume au Général Joffe. The long neck of the giraffe coulé be an analogy to the Eiffel tower. The juxtaposition of girafe noce, and Gustave [Bitfel] suggesis the play Les mariés de la rour Eyfet, writen in 1921 and staged with incidental music composed by Les Sixy with the exception of Louis Durey, Cocteau writes «bien le bonjour 4 Gustave» «i Gustave,» and la noce de Gustavep in Tambour6 Cocteau ‘er, de ma‘jol turin kleb fons grafo Air de — Mayol" Touring ‘Club® phonographe Song of — Mayol Touring Club phonograph fife kri ma ku'loer pja’no meka’nik Affiche crime en couleurs Piano mécanique, Poster crime in colors Piano automatic, Player piano ‘nik kar'ter se dy sli Nick Carter’? C'est du i Nick Carter This is something pretty! Nick Carter. Nice! liber'te egali'te fraterni'te Liberté égalité fraterni Liberty equality —_fraternity! 3. Enfant de Troupe! Gyto Gs mor'so pur isto sel polka forceau pour piston seul Polka, Piece for comet solo Polka, ‘karamel_ ‘mu babdasidy le pastijdoe' mat Caramels mous, bonbons acidulés, Pastilles de menthe Caramels soft avid drops, Peppermints @trakta lo’ dee ra sa’bo Emtr'acte L' —odeur en sabots. Intermission The scent in hooves. bo gi bie de sate ‘tye par le tdbur Beau gibier de satin tué parle tambour? Beautiful © gamebird of satin killed by the drum : Flix Mayol (1872-1941), French cabaret singer, famous for hits such as Plens Poupoule. Reference to Tambour. Pierre Caizerzues, in Ere compléte, explains the symbolism of Cocteau’s image “however, Jean Cocteau has strived to transform through writing the harsh realty of the war scene. Remembering probably Apollinaire’s lesson in Calligranmnes he makes of the deadly rockets a beautiful «fireworks» and of the shell, holes «Vesuvius»; with the same humor he transforms the soldiers” slow advance ino a uring club excursion” (Jean Cocteau, Eure complete, [: 1674.) ‘Famous American comic strip detective, This poem is published under the title Bonne d'enfant as the second poem of the Cocurdes. This line appears in the earlier poem Aorobares (Acrobats) as «un giier de satin tué par le tambour, » ‘cOiseleur de ses propres mains» is also line fom Aerobaies.Cocteau 7 @bur "bok si'ro dee fra’bwars Hambourg Bock de framboise Hamburg Beer glass Liquor of raspberry ware'ker de se ‘propre ‘me Oiseleur de ses propres mains Bird catcher with his own hands fter'meds —-yni'forme ‘blo Interméde uniforme blew Interlude uniform blue le tra’pe 2a sis la ‘mor Le trapeze _encense la mort... ‘The trapeze bums incense to death praises death The apparent discontinuity of the text of the Cocardes reveals the influence of the Dada movement, which was flourishing in Paris at the time. Cocteau borrowed its material from previous works, notably the unpublished booklet Tambour, an unfinished work elaborated in collaboration with the painter Roger de La Fresnaye. Cocteau explains the goal of Tambour to his mother: “This small text has given me much trouble because I try to express in it, in a few words, the French atmosphere which foreigners cannot understand.” “Picture Picasso's real scene! flower baskets, shelves, portraits of Carnot and of Joftre. Pictures of sailors with curly moustaches, pipes, advertisements, Les saisons, a second-rate Renoir color print, bags of tobacco, hats, ete., etc.” Cocardes suggests the gloom of the working class suburbs, an atmosphere its inhabitants attempted to elude in the illusion of the circus.'* In the address he gave before the performance of Cocardes on 20 February 1920 at the Thédtre des Champs-Elysées, Cocteau reinforces the idea of ‘an art directly linked with the popular folklore: “The Cocardes are false popular songs, in the same ‘way as our circus was a false circus, and the theater an illusion. We intended to draw on the Parisian roots which people neglect, like the Russians musicians draw to the roots of the Russian folklore. | insisted to explain our intentions, because the trombone, the comet, and the bass drum spawn laughter, but I consider them inseparable from a certain melancholy typical of our people.”"!? Jean Cocteau, Lettres sa mere, (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), 1: 436, 422. ‘Adrienne Monnier (1892-1985), in an article published in 1935, summarizes the significance of the eircus for those who have experienced its magic inthe early twenties: “The circus is perhaps the most vital of all spectacles, [tis 8 place fall of simple and powerful charms. Charms of childhood memories. Charms ofthe very form of the circus, of its odor, its clamor. Charms of the ritual that presides over the entrances of the stunts. These bodily acts, these attractions that are daughters of universal atraction take place with great ceremony. What can be as moving asthe rol ‘of the drum that announces the most perilous moment of the nuraber and the wot silence that follows i Shall we hesitate fo think of the Elevation of the Mass? And what is as noble as the hand of the gymnast, who stands up absolutely suaight aftr his stunt, with his palm open like he very symbol of work and its flfillment? Here the word ‘work has a figure, a fatality, which it does not have elsewhere... . One understands the liking that people of the lower ‘lass have for the circus. There they are at home. It is a world in the image of their own, 1 the glory oftheir own, a ‘world entirely of matter, struggles, dangers, delights, ilusions.” (Adrienne Monnier, The Very Rich Hours of Adrienne Monnier (trans. Richard MeDougall) [New York: Scribner, ¢i976], 237-8.) She owned the bookstore La Maison des ‘mis des livres, in which Poulenc met, among others, Apollinaire, Elurd, and Aragon. Cited in Prere Georgel, Jean Cocteau et son temps 1889-1963 (Pars: Institut de France Musée Jaquemact- André, 1968), 70,8 Cocteau Cocardes exemplifies the principles extolled by the new generation of French composers: clarity of the melodie line, simplicity of the harmonic language, and absence of pathos and of motivic development. Poulenc responds to Cocteau's appeal.'* Such features understandably give to Cocardes the appearance of a lighthearted music. However, Poulene felt his music held a deeper significance.'” Vincent Vivés best summarizes this unconventional tendency: “Poulenc is without doubts the musician who has explored most thoroughly and best understood a certain type of poetry evolving in and around surrealism, in which laughter and joie de vivre are not fulfilled within a humorous universe, but overlook the tragic character underlined by Satie in Ludions (Spleen by Léon-Paul Fargues).”'® “sThe small orchestra accompaniment (bugle, trombone, violin, bass drum, and triangle) corresponded very specifically to the style of the fsic, wished by Cocteau.” (Francis Poulenc, Entretiens avec Claude Rostand, (Patis Jallard, 1954], 66.) In Le Cog er U'Arlequin, written in 1918, Cocteau haranigues the young generation of musicians to ibreak ties with the old German and Russian schools and to find their own identity as musicians in their own folklore. “tis imperative that the musician cures the musi from its intertwining, from its artfies, is ead tricks; that be forces Imusic 10 temain as much as possible in front of the audience.” Further, in the book, Cocteau emphasizes the importance of the music hall and of the circus as a source of inspiration in order to create a genuine French music ean Cocteau, Le Cog et l'Arlequin [Editions Stock, 1979], 50-1, 58. Is ttle opposes the rooster, symbol of pure French song, tothe harlequin, whose multicalored garments represent the Geeman and Russian influences on French yr Ina letter of 15 October 1920 to Paul Collaer (1891-1989), Poulene puts the seriousness and the depth of emotions in Cocardes above Le bestiaire, He explains the sist of Cocardes in the same letter “First, I beg you, do not perform the Cocardes at a concert of happy music, because itis very sad music, except the third one. You have misjudged this work to seein it mad cheerfulness. You will see by the instrumentation how a melancholy of evening of dune in the suburbs emanates from the frst two, ... What you tell me about Le besfiaire pleases me very much but “Surprises me, for I have never considered this work as a deeply elr work, but rather as images. It is a different story with Bonne dienfant which exposes a whole side of my sensibility, which isnot very distinguished, but very human fon the other hand. (Myriam Chiménes, ed, Francis Poulene: Correspondance 1910-1963 (Paris: Fayart, 1994], 114.) Michel Faure and Vincent Vives, Histoire et poctique de la mélodie francaise, (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2000),Apollinaire 9 uu GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) was bom Wilhelm Albert Wlodzimierz Apolinary de Wa-Kostrowicki. His mother Angelika de Kostrowitzky was of Polish descent. He spent his youth in Rome, then on the French Riviera. He moved to Paris in 1899, but unable to work, found aa job as a French tutor and traveled through Germany and Austria fora year. Back in Paris, he met Alfred Jamy, André Salmon, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, and Erik Satie, and established himself slowly as a dominant figure of the literary and artistic world. Marie Laurencin, his companion from 1907 to 1912, speaks of that period in Le carnet des muits; In the evening, he [Apollinaire] spent time at Picasso’s with Max Jacob, at 13 Ravignan Street, and the three did not cease to quarrel, play tricks on each other, scare each other, and mostly to curse each other, that were their big thing. and then again, they adored cach other. They only drank once every other month, and when inebriated, they became excessively courteous.' Apollinaite published Le bestiaire ou cortege d'Orphée (The Bestiary or Procession of Orpheus) in 1911 (with woodeut illustrations by Raoul Dufy) and Alcools in 1913, a carefully structured compilation of his best poems. In an article signed J[ean] C[érusse}, and published in Les soirées de Paris on 15 May 1914, he protested the association of his poetry with the poetry of the poéres famaisisies: “Lately, it has become a habit to classify Guillaume Apollinaire with a group called Faniaisistes. The poet of Alcoo/s has always liked fantasy Yet, one would understand faultily his poetry, especially the present one, without perceiving its realism... . The fantasy of Guillaume Apollinaire has never been anything else but a great care for truth, @ meticulous attention to trueness. Nothing is more beautiful than veracity.” In Calligrammes (Apollinaire made up the name from the Greek xédoc, «beauty, » and ypéxyia, «letter»), published in 1918, he composed poems which typographically suggest the object or the subject of the verses. At the outbreak of World War I, he volunteered to fight and requested to be sent to the front. He was wounded in 1916 and forced to assume administrative duty until his discharge. He married Jacqueline Kolb in early 1918, but prematurely died from the flu pandemic ‘on 9 November 1918, two days before the armistice. ‘On | December 1918 was published in Mercure de France his manifesto L esprit nouveau et les poétes, which became his poetic testament. The following excerpts reveal better than any ‘other dissertation the poet’s philosophy, and bring light to his work. Although Apollinaire became an influential figure for the next generation of surrealist poets, he always found inspiration for his poctry in his own life experiences and travels: “{Esprit noweau] is committed study of nature, from the outside and the inside; it is committed fervor for truth.” “The esprit nouveau is also in surprise. It is what is most alive, is newest in it. Surprise is the great new competence. It is through surprise; with the important place it gives to surprise that esprit Marie Laurencin, “Le Camet des nits,” Serits et documents de peintres, ed. Pierre Cailler, (Geneve: np. 1946) 40, Guillaume Apollinsie, “Surnaturlisme,” in Soirées de Paris, Vol. 3, 0 24, 15 May 1914, 248, villaome Apollinsire, «esprit nouveau et les pokes» in Mercure de France, Vol. CXXX, no. 491, 1 December 1918, 39110 Apollinaire nouveau is different from all the artistic and literary movements that preceded it. Here it disengages itself from everyone and belongs only to our own times.” “Until there were planes in the sky, the tale of Tearus was nothing but a supposed truth 1 will add, all the fables being for the most part carried out and beyond, it belongs to the poet to conceive new ones, so the creator may in turn realize them.” “The thing is, poetry and creation is one same thing; one must call poet only he who inyents, he ‘who creates, in the measure that man can create. The poet is the one who discovers new joys, may they be painful to assume. One can be poet in all fields: it is enough to be adventurous and to seek breakthroughs.”° “The least known, but richest domain, the one that expands through the infinite, being imagination, it is not surprising that we particularly reserved the name of poet to those who look for the new joys that mark out the enormous imaginative spaces.” “One can start from a daily event: a dropped handkerchief can be for the poet the lever that will lift a whole universe. We know what the fall of an apple seen by Newton became for this scientist that we can call poet.”* “Poets are not only men of beauty. They are also and foremost men of truth.” LE BESTIAIRE " (FP 15a) ou Cortége d’Orphée Louis Durey'" 1919 By to Es Apollinaire first published eighteen poems entitled La marchande des quatre saisons ow bestiaire mondain on 15 June 1908 in the magazine La phalange, within which were included Le dromadaire and La chévre du Thibet. He completed the series of poems with twelve newer ones and published the definitive version of Le bestiaire ou cortege d’Orphée in 1911. The poems were written in the style of blason littéraire'? and were individually illustrated with a woodeut by Raoul Duty'®, Apollinaire perceived Orphée as follows ‘Orphée was bom in Thrace. This sublime poet played the lyre that Mercury had given to him. It was made of the shell of a turtle, of leather tied around, of two branches, of a bridge and strings made of lamb’s gut. . .. When Orphée played and sang, the 391 1392 1392 392.3. 1393 Ioid, 393 Le Hesiire was fs writen for female voice with accompaniment of seven instruments: to violins, vo cello, flute, BY clarinet, and bassoon. Poulene initially set tweve ofthe poems from Le bestiaire ov cortége dOrphee (19TH, Soprano Jeanne Bore, with Poulene at the piano, premiered them on 8 June 1919 for & memoril concert intended for Apollinaire who had died on 9 November 1918. Poulone was disappointed with the result and, advised by his frends Georges Aurc and Raymonde Linossier. discard six songs fom the eyele (Francis Poulene, Journal de mex melodies, ed, Machar (Pris: Cickro, 193], 14) The discarded songs are La torte, Le serpent, La mouche, La ppuce, La colombe, and Le bauf. A manuscript dated 1944 of Le serpen! and La colombe is kept atthe Bibliotheque ‘atonae in Paris ir Brench compose (1888-1979), one of Ls Six. He et ll thtty poems of Le Bestia Poetic gente ofthe sixteenth century that consists ofa description, Matting o striea, ofa subject. -Armedival technique thet Dufy had studied.Apoltinaire i animals themselves came to listen to his music. Orphée created all the sciences and all the arts. Versed in magic, he knew the future and predicted the coming of the SAVIOR". Poulenc, in a leter to Arthur Hoérée of 19 January 19: tempi of all six melodies of Le Bestiaire’” /es specific corrections regarding the “Dromadaire” quarter note =76 coda half note =1%6 ‘Chevre du Thibet” quarter note = 66 “Sauterelle” quarter note -69 “Dauphin” quarter note = 126 Forevisse” quarter note =92 Carpe” quarter note =56 He also adds, “The singer, male or female, must avoid above all things any humorous intentions. The dear Apoliinaire who had written those short poems in the time of his love for Maric Laurenein had only put in them sweetness and melancholy. One must sing these melodies with tenderness and in the style of Schubert. '°” 1. Le dromadaire atroe d Avec ses quatre With its four pa'dera dromadaires dromedaries, pe'dro dalfarube:i'ra Pedro d' —_Alfaroubeira Pedro of Alfaroubeira ku'ty ke ‘mo de ladmi’ra Courut le monde et Padmira Roamed the world and admired it, il fi se keg udre fera HW fit ce que je —-youdrais faire He did what that T would want todo Guillaume Apollinaire, are po nue, eds. Marcel Adéma and Miche! Décaudin (Tours: La Pléiade, 1959), ced., Francis Poulenc: Correspondance 1910-1963 (Paris: Fayatt, 1994), 24. ‘ed., Francis Poulenc: Correspondance 1910-1963 (Paris: Feyatt, 1994), 248, Poulenc insists on the seriousness of Le bestiaire in bis Journal. On 1! Novernber 1939, he woe, “io sing Le hesilaire with inony and mostly with infontions is a complete misinterpretation. It is not to understand anything to the postry of Apollinaire and to my music.” (Francis Poulenc, Jeurnal de mes mélodies (Paris: Grasset, 1964), 4) *. .. The Infant of Portugal, don Pedro d’Alfacoubeira took the road with twelve companions to visit the seven parts of the world. Those travelers were riding on four dromedaries, and after having passed in Spain, they went to Norway and from there, to Babylon and in the Holy Land, The Portuguese prince visited then the states of Priest John, and went back to his country after three years and four months.” (Guillaume Apollinaire, wire poctique, eds Marcel Adéma and Michel Décaudin [Tours: La Pléfade, 1959], : 34.)12 Apollinaire si gave ‘katroe droma'dera Si j!— avaiy. quatre dromadaires. Thad four dromedacies. Poulenc transposes the inflection of the spoken words into the vocal line'*. ‘The accompaniment pictures the jolting motion of the dromedaries, synchronizing the music with the rhythm of the travelers, 2. La chovre du Thibet le 'pwal_doe sete fevro e ‘memes Les polls de cette chévre et meme The hairs of this goat and even so dor pu ki pri ta de ‘pena Ceux d'or pour qui prit tant de —_peine Those of — gold for which put somuch —of-_— effort ged ne'vale ‘fe no ie Jason, ne valent rien au prix Jason, arenot worth anything compared to the price de fe've se syle’ Des cheveux dont je suis pris. OF the hair which Tam enamored. This poem affirms that the value of a beloved’s hair exceeds, by a large amount, the value of the Golden Fleece itself. In the Greek mythology, Orphée accompanied Jason and the Argonauts to seek the Golden Fleece, The piano accompaniment paints the languid and undulating walk of the goat. The vocal line once again adopis the natural inflections of the declamation. 3. La sauterelle vwa'si la finee sotce' rela Voici la fine sauterelle Here is the fine locust la onurityre de SE gi La nourriture de Saint Jean The nourishment of St. John Marie Laurencin, Apollinaire’s companion at the time he composed Le bestiaire, wrote, “Apollinaire had a way to recite his verses with a low end singing voice which is almost like Poulene’s music and Poulene has never met ures, ed. Pierre pollinate. I may be wrong.” (In Marie Laurencin, “Le Camet des nuts,” Boris et documents de Cailler, [Genéve: np 1946) 40.)Apollinaire 13 pyisce me ‘ver_ “zetrae ko melo Puissent mes vers étre comme elle May my verses be like she le re'gal_de == me'jene “3 Le —régal_ des meilleures gens. The treat of the best people. Apollinaire quotes Mark 1: 6 to clarify the reference to John the Baptist: “And John was clothed with camel's hait and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did cat locusts and wild honey.” Both John the Baptist and Orphée announced the advent of Christ (see above), and were killed by beheading because of their rejection of the love of women. *° Poulenc’s music suggests the refinement of Apollinaire’s grasshopper. Even though the pulse is rather slow, the piano accompaniment and the vocal line never lose their essential lightness and agility 4. Le dauphin do’ vw gue da lamer Dauphins, vous jouez dans Ia mer, Dolphins, you play in the sea, mee ‘flo © u'gur Ss za'mer Mais le fot est toujours. amer. But the flow is always bitter. par iWwa ma '3wa_eklat ‘tela Parfois, ma joie Gelate-t-elle ? Sometimes, does my joy _ burst out? la vi © @ kore kry'ela La vie est encore cruelle, Life is yet cruel Heribert Wittenberg attributes a sexual connotation to this poem”. He associates the dolphins with male sexuality and the sea with the archetype of femininity and explains the poem as 4 suggestion of the sexual act. After which, life goes on its cruel course. Dufy's woodcut, which displays obvious phallic symbols, supports this interpretation. Erotic references are frequent in Apollinaire’s work. He wrote two pomographic novels during the same years he wrote Le bestiaire ‘The music captures the jubilant character of the dolphins. ts suppleness corresponds to the ‘aquatic nature of the poem. The vocal line is not as declamatory as the other songs: its waves 135, Guillaume Apollinaire, xvre poérigque, eds. Mareel Adéma and Michel Décaudin (Tours: La Pléiade, 1959), Orphée was killed by the Bacchantes aftr his filed journey tothe underworld. John was decapitated when Salome, advised by Herodiace, requested his head, Heribert Wittenberg, “L'amour dans Le bestiaire ow cortege d'Orphé Guillaume Apoitinaire 17, Michel Décandin (Paris: Letres modernes, 1987), 15 La rewe des letres modernes Onze mille verges, in 1906-7, and Les exploits d'un jewne Don Juan, around 1910,14 Apollinaire imitate those of the sca. 5. Liéerevisse Esertitydo 0 me de'liso Incertitude, 6 mes délices Uncertainty, 0 my delights vu ze ‘mwa nu mu zaina'lo Vous et moi nous nous en allons You and I we go Kkomer sa'vO le —-zekroe'viso Comme sfenvont tes éerevisses, Just as 0 the crayfishes, arecky'ld a recky'ld A reculons, Areeulons. Backwards, backwards. This poem expresses the same sentiment of bittemess paired with humor towards life as La souris, which Poulenc will set in 1956.” The descending, circular musical motive portrays the lack of direction expressed in the poem. 6. La carpe di vo vive di vo eta Dans vos viviers, dans vos étangs, In your fishponds, in -your_ pools karpo ke yu vi've 106 Carpes, que vous _vivez_ longtemps ! Caps. how you live fora long time! eso koe lamar vu’ Est-ce que lamort yous oublie, Isit that death forgets you, doe la melako'li Poissons de Ja mélancolie? of melancholy? The persistent alternation of the higher, medium and lower registers of the piano in an invariable pattem throughout the piece create the effect of an intermittent rocking motion. Poulene has created the perfect expression of the quiet lapping of the stagnant water and the immutability of the fish implied in the poem. Poulenc states this duality in Apollinaire's work: “one only has 1 look at any picture of Apollinaire (0 ‘understand that with bim irony is always veiled with tenderness and melancholy. (Francis Poulenc, Journal de mes melodies (Paris: Grasset, 1964] 34-5.)Apollinaire 15 de Louise Lalanne (Guillaume Apollinaire) February 1931 Cato. Ae sity wo ge teedone're Si fu veux je tedo If you want, Twill give you md ma'te md mate ‘ge Mon matin, mon matin gai My moming, © my moming cheerful a'vek tm =o me —kler__fe'vo Avee tous mes clairs cheveux With all my — light hair ke ty ‘ema Que tu aimes; That you like; me 7jo ‘ver Mes yeux verts My — cyes, green ze do'te Et dorés ‘And golden soy we Sit veux If you want Trois podmes are writen for fernale voice, on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire end Marie Laurencin, Suzanne Peignot, with Poulenc at the piano, premiered them on 1S June 1931, The poems were fist published in the Periodical Marges, in March 1909. Between January and November 1909, Apoliiaire published a series of articles on he feminine literature in Marges, under the name of Louise Lalanne. Along with the articles, he also published a few poems signed Louise Lalanne. Ina letter to Poulene of 1931, Marie Laurencin (who was Apollinaire’s companion at hat time,) reveals the origins of the poems: “when it was time to publish, Guillaume, laziness in person, had nat dene anything, and I remember, we have looked in the notebooks of my young days filled with nonsense, and in which we ceded up to find those two embryo, Hler, Le présent, which anyway | don’t find interesting,” (Myriam Chimenes, ed. Francis Poulenc: Correspondance 1910-1963 [Patis: Fayart, 1994], 337.) Chanson isthe only poem of the group truly of Apollinaire. * Marie -Blanche de Polignac (1898-1958). Excellent musician, she was a member of Nadia Boulanger’s vocal ble. She premiered Trois Podmes de Louise de Vilmorin with Poulenc atthe pisno in 1938. Poulene frequent'y Visited her and her husband either in their Antibes property or in Kerbastic, thet castle in Brittany. He dedicated erous melodies o her.16 Apollinaire 3c tee donee're tu ke bry Je tedonnerai tout le bruit 1 will give you all the noise ki se fe Qui se fait ‘That is made ka le ma'te se've Quand Je matin stéveille When the moming wakes jo so'lej Au soleil To the sun e lo ki ‘ula Et of eau qui coule And the — water which runs di laf tena Dans la _ fontaine In the fountain tu to'pre ‘Tout auprés! Close by! © pai zakor ee ‘swar_ ki vjédra vita Et puis encor le soir qui viendra vite And then again the evening which willeome quickly hoe 'swar_ do = md ‘name tris_ Le soir de mon ame triste The evening of -~—s my —_ soul, sad ta plate A pleurer From crying oom ‘me ‘toe pee'tits Ft mes mains toutes petites And my — hands quite small a'vek m6 "keer kil fo'dra pre dy je Avec mon ceur qu’ il faudra prés du tien With my heart which you — shall, close 19 yours,Apollinaire 0 gar'de Garder. Keep. Trois poemes de Louise Lalanne is, besides the sixteen bars of Epitaphe, the first work Poulene composed after the death of Raymonde Linossier, which had oceurred a year carlicr.”* It marks the onset of a prolific period that will yield twelve songs in 1931 as well a3 Le bal masque and the Concerto for two pianos and orchestra in 1932. The music of Le présent captures the feverishness and the lightness archetypal of the youths, as well as their insecurity and their angst. 2. Chanson Ex to As le mir'tijo 3 la ‘dama Les myrtilles sont la dame The bilberries are the — woman kine pa Qui n'est pas Who is not la margo'le ne pur. mo ‘nama La marjolaine est. pour mon ame The sweetmarjoram is for = my _—_ soul kee fevre'foe je pur la be Le — chevrefeuille est pour Ia belle The honeysuckle is for the beauty lirreza'ly Irrésolue. Inesolute ka kegjeerd ‘nu le ze'rela Quand cucillerons-nous —Ies___airelles When will we gather the —huckleberries latyr'ly Lanturtu, Lanturlu. See iiapbe p96,18 Apollinaire me esd pu'se syr_ la ‘toba Mais laissons —pousser sur la_—_tombe, But, letus grow onthe grave, ‘of lo fu O — folle! oO O foolish! ° le roma're, a tufoe ‘sdbro Le romarin — en_touffes sombres The rosemary in tufts, gloomy laity Laitou. Laitou, This poem meets halfway between the folk song and the children’s rhyme. Poulene respects its popular roots. He gives predominance to the rhythm of the declamation and imposes an irregular succession of meters to the music. He achieves a more faithful rendition of what an actual performance of this song would be, if an untrained amateur, to whom the melody and the words ‘would have been passed on orally, sang it. The diversity of colors in the piano and the vocal line reflects the extravagance of the poem: to every musical phrase corresponds a specific articulation, dynamic, texture, and character. 3. Hier E, to Fs se se fa'po fa'ne ce est ce chapeau —fané it is that hat faded ke xe ta Que j' ai longtemps That I have alongtime dragged out, jer se tyne ‘povre robo Hier, est une pauvre robe Yesterday, it isa poor dress. ki ne ‘ply za la 'moda Qui nest plus ala mode, Which is nolonger fashionable. jer se'te Ie bo ku'va Hier, était te beau couvent Yesterday, it was the beautiful conventApollinaire 19 si vider miter'nd Si vide maintenant So empty now e la roz melako tio Et la rose mélaneolie And the rosy (sentimental) melancholy de kur do ‘sone fija Des cours de jeunes filles ofthe courses of young ladies of home economics itjer se mB “keer mal__ do‘n Hier, est mon ceur mal donné Yesterday, it’ is. += my heart. badly given y ‘note y m0 tra'nes Une autre, une autre année! An other, another year! i'jer ne ‘ply so ‘swar ky ‘ndbre Hier, nest plus, cesoir, qu’ une ombre Yesterday iso more, tonight, than a shadow pre dee mwa dé ma "fabro Pris de noi dans ma chambre. Near me in my room This poem by Marie Laurencin inspired Poulenc to write one of his first truly lyr melodies. He captures the essence of the rose mélancolie that pervades the poem with the longing interval on each of the different settings of the word fer, and the chromat The pattem of repeated eight notes maintains an undisturbed pulse throughout the pi cism of the vocal line.20 Apoltinaire QUATRE POEMES” (FP 58) de Guillaume Apol February 1931 As to Gs 1. L'anguille® 4 Marie Laurencin” By to Gs san huhu” la re —_ga'tijo Jeanne Houhou —ta_—trés_—_gentille Jeanne Houhou, the most darling ihe er de ‘dae “ba Est morte entre des draps tres blames Is dead between some sheets very white pa ‘seelo be'ber_ di la’ gijo Pas seule Bébert dit I’ Anguille Not alone, Bébert, called the Eel nar’ si Joe mer'la Narcisse le Nareisse the pre ‘dela ma nija Prés delle manille” Near her played their card-game © la kra'noze = de Kli'fi Et la erfmeuse de_—Clichy* And the bragger of Clichy ° ruse zye doe — dogee'lada Aux rouges yeux de dégueulade With her red eyes, from puking re'peta mo no dee vi fi Répite "Mon eau de Vichy" Repeats: “My bottle of Vichy water” Quatre potmes ace writen for baritone or mezzo-soprano, on poems by Apollinate. Roger Bourdin, with Poulenc at the piano, premiered them on 15 June 1931. “Roget Bourdin, who premiered this set, was excellent in it” (Francis Poulenc, Journal de mes mélodies, ed. Machart (Paris: Cicéro, 1993], 18.) This pocm was frst published in Soirées de Paris, on 13 May 1914, French painter (1885-1956). She was Apollinaire's companion berween 1908 and 1912 and designed the set forthe production of Pouiene’s ballet Les biches by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1924 kis possible to slightly pronounce the «ho in shouhou» and «haha». DMerlan isa hairdresser in French argot. Card game where the strongest cards ae the ten, followed by the aces, A suburb of Paris,Apollinaire 21 va dike panje rasa'lad Va dans le panier A salade Goes in the police van ha‘ha” sd fer_ de fifi Haha sans faire de ‘chichi Ha! ha! without making =a fuss” le zo dasa omer de 230 Les yeux dansant comme —des_—_anges The eyes dancing _like some angels ele rife ele rij Elle elle riai She laughed, she laughed le -zjo te bla ste) ‘dae afa Les yeux trés bleus les dents (rds blanches The eyes very blue, the teeth very white si vw sa'vje si w Si vous saviez, si vous Ifonly you knew, ifonly you knew tu se ke om f'n di mafe Tout ce que nous ferons dimanche, Ail thethings that we —willldo on Sunday. ‘anguille depicts a somewhat equivocal atmosphere, but Apollinaire achieves it with tas and style without betraying its popular roots. This song is a perfect example of Poulene’s ability to create his own authentic folklore with his music.** The music unfolds the uplifting pulse of a vaise-musetie (waltz played on the accordion), which sets the Parisian atmosphere of the pocm. Poulene emulates the Parisian speech on the verse « ‘mon eau de Vichy’» by emphasizing the first syllable of Vicly. The pulse remains undisturbed from beginning to end as Poulenc always insisted on the necessity of performing his Apollinaire songs without emphasis.” See footnote “{ [Manuel Rosenthal] once asked Ravel his opinion of Poulene's music, and he replied, "What | like is his ability o invent populat tunes” (Manuel Rosenthal, Savi, Ravel, Poulenc [New York: Hanuman books, 1987). 74 *.P--Never have | borrowed motives or liturgical modes. I inspire myself from it, but from afar. That is what I have always done for some pseudo-popular themes, in my music. C.R.-Which made Ravel say, rightly: What is good with Poulenc, it is that he creates his own folklore.” (Francis Poulenc, Entretiens avec Claude Rostand [Paris: Re Julliaed, 1954), 113.) i Sec notes i Le bestia, p. 112 Apollinaire 2. Carte-postale 4 Madame Cole Porter” February 1931 B, to D;" obra de la we ‘du se tevo'ke i'si L’— ombre de Ia trés-—douce est évoquée ici, The shadow of the very sweetone == is_——evoked here™* Edo'la te 3wa toe do'ld to'si Indolente, ct jouant un dolent aussi Weary, and playing =a whining too: nok'tyr, mm tid ki fepa'me = 83. ‘nama Nocturne on tied mineur qui fait pimer son ime Noctume or Lied inminor that overcome her soul a. 1 bu se 1 “dwa fSmu'ri syne “gama Dans! ombre oi ses Tongs. doigts font mourir une gamme In the shade where her long fingers murder a scale © pja’no Ki e ko mynae ‘povre fama ‘Au piano qui geint comme ume pauvre femme. ‘Atthe piano which moans like apathetic = woman. Poulene does not leave any room for emphasis in this song. He strictly spells out on the ‘score not to tamper with the pulse of the music. He also assigns one dynamic to the piano and one to the vocal line and instructs the performers not to alter them throughout the whole song, rendering the monochromatic quality of the beloved’s shadow. The numerous descending intervals of the melodic line and the general descending gesture of cach of the musical phrases mirror the weariness of the musician as well as the plaintive sound of her playing. 3. Avant le cinéma”? ‘@ Madame Picasso” March 1931 As toEs © pyi se ‘swar 3 sani're Et puis ce soir on stenira And then this evening we _—_will go ° sine’ ma Aw cinéma To the movie. Wife ofthe American composer Cole Porte, who was living and working in Paris a that epoch. “This poern was first published in Jy a as the second poe ofthe section Les Diet d'amour & Lind with the note: “postcard of 19 May 1901 for the nice young lady Linda M. da S.” Apolinaire had met Femand Molina da Silva, ‘with whom he became friends, sround 1900, Femand had a sixteen year old sister, Linds, to whom Apollinare sent a series of courly postcards between April and July 1901. The first letiers ofeach line of this poern spell her name. ‘This poom was first published in the Nord Sud on 15 April 1917. (Olga Khoklova (1891-1955), Russian Balls dancer, she became Pablo Picasso's first wite in 1918,le artiste kee Les Artistes que The Artist what see nce 0 ‘ply so Cenesont plus ceux They ate no longer those se nesd‘pa so Ce nesont pas ceux They are not those ar pae'ti ku Art poétique ou Ant ofpoetry or le zar'tistee soe Les Artistes ce The Artists, they si mu se'tié Si nous étions If we were nu nee dirj6 ‘pa Nous ne dirions pas We — would not say mm di'rja le Nous dirions le We would say “the me si nuze'tio Mais si nous étions But if wewere mu ned ni Nous nedirions ni We wouldsay neither me sinemata’ graf Mais cinématographe*’ But “cinematograph” md ‘jo mon Dieu Therefore, my — God, 86 sont- are ki qui who ki qui who bie bien else 80 sont are Apollinaire de zar'tista des Artistes Artists lee le “the cing cing” doe de some fo faut- must se “do ce done they therefore kyl'tive le bo'zar cultivent Jes Beaux-arts cultivate the Fine ans s'kype de lar stoceupent’ de 1’ Art takecare ofthe Art my’ziko musique music le mkter oc le les acteurs ete the actors and the sine‘ma inéma einerna” vio profe’seer doe vieux professeurs de old teacher from the sine ni sine’ma ciné ni cinéma “cing” nor “cinema” ti la'vwar, dy ‘gu it avoir du goat. one have some taste A distinctive rolled "r” in einématographe will mimic « provincial accent. zak’ tris actrices pro'vesa province countryside24 Apollinaire ‘The word cinématographe first appeared in 1892 to describe the newly invented cinema. Its two abbreviated forms, cinéma and ciné, were respectively recognized in the dictionary in 1900 and 1910. In this poem written in 1917, Apollinaire denotes the di iated with each variant. He labels Cinématographe as an archaism, makes ciné an expression reserved only for the elite, and asserts his preference for cinéma by puiting it in context of an everyday life situation right from the first verse of the poem, The birth of cinema sets off a new meaning to the word artisie, now linked to movie actors. Apollinaire’s artificial capitalization of the word, when referring to the actors, attributes to them a false dignity that reveals his thoughts on this neologism in the French language, ferent connotations asso Poulenc set this song with a relentless pulse that is never altered to accommodate the different nuances of the declamation. He changes the texture and the articulation of the piano accompaniment without transition, with the exception of the last section, in which the passage from «mais cinématographe» to «aussi mon Dieu . ..» imitates the cinematographic technique of fading in. In the vocal line, Poulenc underlines the satiric comments of Apollinaire’s poetry by exaggerating the inflection of the words province, cinématographe, and artistes on «si nous étions des Artistes». 4. 1904 @ Madame Jean-Arthur Fontaine Mareh 1931 By t0 Gs a straz’ bu ra dizneefsd'katra A Strasbourg cn — dix-neuf-cent-quatre In Strasburg, in _ninetzen-hundred-four ssai've pur lee leedi ‘gra So arrival pour le lundi gras T arrived = ontime for Shrove Monday a Jo tel_ma’si devi latra AI hotel” m'assis devant v fitre At the hotel, sat facing the fireplace rm 43 fir = de lope'ra Prés d’ un chanteur «de "Opéra close to a singer from the Opera house kine parle koe doe te‘atro Qui ne parlait que de theatre Who only spoke exclusively about theater Ja kelbwe'rince, ‘ru save La Kellnerine” rousse avait The waitress redshaired had This poem was first published in Soirdes de Paris on 13 May 1914. German word for waitress.Apollinaire 25 mi sy sate tS fapo roza Mis sur sa téte. un chapeau —_rose Put on her head a hat pink ks me'be kook ‘de ser've Comme —Hébé qui les dieux servait Like Hebe, whom the gods served, ndny 3a’me by font ee fos Nreneut jamais 6 belles. choses Never had, © beautiful things karna'val —fapo oz a've Carnaval ‘chapeau — rose Ave! Camival, hat pink Ave! wenketiy ma ‘ni se ako ‘tana A Rome a Nice et 4 Cologne In Rome in Nice, and in’ Koln da le floer © le kofe'ti Dans Kes fleurs et les confet ‘Among the flowers andthe confetti karna'val_ ge. re'yy ‘tropa foal rew fa trogne, T have met again your drunken face o 'twa ply’ fe cplygatt © roi plusriche ~et_—_plus gentil © king richer and nicer kee kre'zys rtfild e —tar'lon Que Crésus Rothschild” et Torlogne Than Cresus, Rothschild, and Torlonia gee supe de 'pade — fwa ‘gra Je soupai d'un pew de foie gras 1 dinned onsome lite, “ __Daughier of Zeus and Hera she embodies yout, She served the nectar of eternal youth othe Gods of Olympus f° The word confetti was first used in Nice to describe the plaster pellets thrown during the carnival Lydien King of the Antiquity, renown for his tremendous fortune, Famous German family of bankers French for Torlonia, «rich Italian family ofthe nineteenth century26 Apollinaire doe feevrej_ ta dra la ko'pata De ‘cheyreuil_—_tendre ala compote On venison tender with stewed fruits, doe tarte ‘1G etsete'ra De tartes flans et extera On pies, custard tarts et cetera Ee po de kin mee ravi goto Un peu de kirsch me ravigote A little of — kirsh enlivens me. ke ner ta've ‘gattrar me ‘bra Que ne t'avais-je entre mes bras. Why didn’t Ihave you in my — arms. Apollinaire did indeed travel to Strasbourg in February 1904. The woman the poet wishes to hold in his arm at the end of the poem is Annie, an au pair at the service of Mme Milhau, a rich German widow who hired Apollinaire as a French tutor in 1901 and 1902, By 1904, Annie had moved back to England, Apollinaire traveled to London to meet her in November 1903 and planned another trip for May 1904, this time with the intention of proposing. Poulenc creates in the music the exuberance and atmosphere of a carnival: the various succeed each other in a vertiginous tempo, unaltered until the last phrase. He mirrors the fon of the poem from an objective description to a more personal and subjective expression of the poet's thoughts on «que ne t’avais-je entre mes bras, » with a different pulse and texture in the piano accompaniment, and a slower declamation DEUX POEMES® (FP 94) ‘de Guillaume Apollinaire 1, Dans le jardin d’Anna”? @ Reine Bénard August 1938 By to F*s ner mw) zayo Ca 1a dissetsdiswa'sit Ceres si_—nous._avions véeu en I —_an_ dix-sept cent soixante Indeed if we hadbecn living inthe year _ seventeen hundred sixty ee la ‘dator kee wu defi'fre Este ce la date que vous déchiffrez, Is it really the date that you decipher, © Dans ie jardin dAmna was writen foe Piette Bemse, on a pom by Guillaume Apollinaite. Bernac, with Poulene atthe piano, premiered it on 14 October 1938. “This poem was first published in Vers et Prose vol. XXXV in 1913,Apollinaire 2 an‘na syn see bd pjero Anna, sur ce bane de pierre Anna, on this bench in stone eke par ma’loer_ sy se'te alee’ma Et que par matheur = j’'_—eusse été allemand And that by — badluck = 1 shad-— been German me koe par ba'noer_ sy see pre de "wu Mais que par bonheur j’'_—eusse été prés de yous Yet that by chance Thad been close to you nu zarj6 parle da’ mur de — fa's6 Epre'siza Nous aurions —parlé d!—— amour de fagon_ imprécise We wouldhave talked of love ina way imprecise ‘preskee tu’gu ra fra'se Presque toujours en francais Almost always in French © pad eperdy'ma thapeqmd wi cbre Et pendue ——_éperdaiment 4 mon bras And hanging —_head over hills, on omy am yu morje zeku'te vu par'le ee pitago'ras Vous m'auriez — écout vous parler de Pythagoras"! You wouldhave listened fo me_ talking to you about Pythagoras a pa'sa to'si_ 0. ka'fe En pensant aussi au café While thinking also about the coffee ko pra'dre dayne demi “era qu'on prendrait dans une demi- heure that we — wouldbehaving in. =a half’ hour e o'ts ny fete pa're jase to'tona Et 1’ qutomne edit &é — pareil a cet automne And the — fall would had been similar to this. fall kee lepincevi'ne te le‘ papree ku'rona Que I’ épine-vinette™ et les pampres’ couronnent Which the — barberry and the vine branches crown “Greek philosopher and mathematician ofthe sixth century B.C, (Table of mulipliation, decimal system Pythagorean Theorem) ‘A bush, which fruits, berries of the color of wine, are edible. Branch of vine with its leaves and grapes,28 Apollinaire © bryskee'ma par’ fwa ‘gysce saly'e tre Et brusquement parfois —j'——eusse salué tres ‘And abruptly attimes. «== T_—=—Wouldhad bowed to very dee nablee dame ‘erase ze lagu'r0z2 De nobles dames grasses ot_-—_langoureuses (To) some noble ladies fat and languorous pore degys'te —Mitor'ma ets J aurais dégusté —_lentement et fout_ seul 1 would have sipped slowly and all alone pada de ‘Toga swa'res Pendant de tongues. soirées During some long evenings le t'ke e'pe ula malvwa'zio Le tokay* pais ou = Ia_—_—amalvoisie™ The tokay thick or the — malmsey wine gore mi md na’bi_espa'pol J aurais mis mon habit espagnol 1 wouldhave puton my garb Spanish pu ole sy la rutee par la‘ke la'riveeda = 86 Pour aller sur route par laquelle arrive dans son to goon the road. via which comes in her. ma gra’mer ki soe roe'fy za kO'pradre —lalee’ma Ma grand-mére qui serefuse 2 +—-comprendre_'allemand My grandmother who refuse to understand German gore 20k de ver ple dee J aurais éerit des vers pleins de 1 wouldhave written various verses filled with Atala oe? la vi fate rallies vale Sur vos seins, la vie champétre et sur les About your breasts, the ‘life bucolic and about the ae Des alentours Fromthe surroundings Wine of Alsace, made from vines imported from Hungary Sweet wine originating from Greece. yjoka'raso vieux carrosse old coach mitalo'si mythologie mythology “dama dames ladiesApollinaire 29 gore suva ka'se ma = “kano J’ aurais souvent —_cassé ma canne 1 would have frequently smashed = my cane sur le ‘do de pei'za Sur le dos d'un ___ paysan On the back of a peasant yor Sede: =

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