Friday 20 November, 7pm

ROADS TO SOLACE

Les Années Folles

Francesca Chiejina –​ soprano Ashley Riches ​– baritone Nigel Foster –​ piano James Symonds –​ video projections Nick Delvalle ​- speaker with readings from contemporary sources including: Ernest Hemingway ​A Moveable Feast, ​Janet Flanner ​Letter from Paris,​ George Orwell ​Down and Out in Paris and London.

Song 1 - Non, la fidélité f​ rom ​Six Chansons Françaises – Germaine Tailleferre ​ ​(1892-1983) and Gabriel-Charles de Lattaignant (1697-1779)

Non, non, la fidélité N’a jamais été qu’une imbécillité. J’ai quitté par légèreté Plus d’une beauté. Vive la nouveauté!

Mais quoi la probité? Puérilité. Le serment répété - Style usité; A-t-on jamais compté Sur un traité Dicté par la volupté Sans liberté?

On feint, par vanité, D’être irrité; L’amant peu regretté Est invite; La femme, Avec gaîté Bietôt s’arrange De son côté.

Song 2 - Chanson á boire ​from C​ hansons Gaillardes –Francis Poulenc ​ ​(1899-1963​) ​ and Anon

Les rois d’Égypte et de Syrie, Voulaient qu’on embaumât leurs corps, Pour durer plus longtemps morts. Quelle folie!

Buvons donc selon notre envie, Il faut boire et reboire encore. Buvons donc toute notre vie, Embaumons-nous avant la mort. Embaumons-nous; Que ce baume est doux.

Song 3 - A son page f​ rom ​Poèmes de Ronsard – Francis Poulenc and Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)

Fais rafraíchir mon vin, de sorte Qu’il passe en froideur un glaçon; Fais venir Jeanne, qu’elle apporte Son luth pour dire une chanson; Nous ballerons tous trois au son, Et dis à Barbe qu’elle vienne, Les cheveux tors à la façon D'une folâtre Italienne. Ne vois-tu que le jour se passe?

Je ne vis point au lendemain; Page, reverse dans ma tasse, Que ce grand verre soit tout plein. Maudit soit qui languit en vain! Ces vieux médecins je n’appreuve; Mon cerveau n’est jamais bien sain Si beaucoup de vin ne l’abreuve.

Song 4 - La maîtresse volage ​from ​Chansons Gaillardes – Francis Poulenc and Anon

Ma maîtresse est volage, Mon rival est heureux; S'il a son pucelage C’est qu’elle en avait deux.

Et vogue la galère, Tant qu’elle pourra voguer.

Song 5 - L’infidèle f​ rom L​ es Soirées de Pétrograde – Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) and René Chalupt (1885-1957)

O Catherine Ivanowna, O ma douce colombe, Quitte ce vieux banquier qui n’a Déjà qu’odeur de tombe.

On jase dans tout le district De nos mains désunies. Songe à mon coeur fidèle et strict, A sa peine infinie.

Song 6 - Ballet ​from ​Poèmes de Ronsard – Francis Poulenc ​ ​and Pierre de Ronsard

Le soir qu’Amour vous fit En la salle descendre Pour danser d’artifice Un beau ballet d’Amour, Vos yeux, bien qu’il fut nuit, Ramenèrent le jour, Tant ils surent d’éclairs Par la place répandre.

Le ballet fut divin, Qui se soulait reprendre, Se rompre, se refaire Et, tour dessus retour, Se mêler, s’écarter, Se tourner à l’entour, Contre imitant le cours Du fleuve de Méandre.

Ores il était rond, ores long, Or’ étroit, or’ en pointe, En triangle, en la façon qu’on voit L’escadron de la grue Évitant la froidure.

Je faux, tu ne dansais, Mais ton pied voletait Sur le haut de la terre; Aussi ton corps s’était transformé Pour ce soir en divine nature.

Song 7 - Danseuse f​ rom ​Quatre Petites Mélodies – Erik Satie (1866-1925) and Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)

Le crabe sort sur ses pointes Avec ses bras en corbeille; Il sourit jusqu’aux oreilles.

La danseuse d’Opéra, Au crabe toute pareille, Sort de la coulisse peinte, En arrondissant les bras.

Song 8 - Fumée f​ rom ​Trois ​ ​Poèmes de Jean Cocteau​ ​– Darius Milhaud and Jean Cocteau Text C’est permis de fumer. Gare L'ecuyer de Médrano Quand tu fumes ton cigare Saute à travers les anneaux.

Song 9 - Miel de Narbonne – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau

Use ton coeur. Les clowns fleurissent du crotin d’or, Dormir.​ ​ Un coup d’orteil, on vole “Volez-vous jouer avec moa?” Moabite. Dame de la croix bleu, caravane. Vanille, poivre, confiture de tamarin, Marin, cou, le pompom, moustache, mandoline, Linoléum en trompe l’oeil, merci, Cinéma nouvelle muse.

Song 10 - Enfant de Troupe f​ rom ​Cocardes – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau

Morceau pour piston seul, polka, Caramels mous, bonbons acidulés, pastilles de menthe, ENTR’ACTE.

L’odeur en sabots. Beau gibier de satin tué par le tambour, Hambourg, Bock, Sirop de framboise, Oiseleur de ses propres mains. Intermède, Uniforme bleu. Le trapeze encense la mort.

Song 11 - Le Paon ​from L​ e Bestiaire – Louis Durey ​ ​(1888-1979) and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

En faisant le roue, cet oiseau, Dont le pennage traîne à terre, Apparaît encore plus beau, Mais se découvre le derrière.

Song 12 - L’Oiseau en Cage ​from S​ héhérazade – Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) and Tristan Klingsor (Arthur Justin Léon Leclère, 1874-1966)

O jeune fille, ton corps délicieux Est parfumé de lilas et de lis Comme un jardin de délices, Et quand tu passes, Les vieillards clignent des yeux En devinant sous la robe de couleur, Le trésor de ta croupe Rose et large, Et se disent que l’amour Est dans ton coeur Comme un oiseau en cage.

Song 13 - Mon mari m’a diffamée f​ rom ​Six Chansons Françaises – Germaine Tailleferre and Anon

Mon mari m’a diffamée Pour l’amour de mon ami, De la longue demeurée Que j’ai faite avec lui. Hé! Mon ami, En dépit de mon mari Qui me va toujours battant, Je ferai pis que devant.

Aucunes gens m’ont blamée, Disant que j’ai fait ami: La chose très fort m’agrée. Mon très gracieux souci. Hé! Mon ami, En dépit de mon mari Qui ne vaut pas un grand blanc, Je ferai pis que devant.

Quand je suis la nuit couchée Entre les bras de mon ami, Je deviens presque pamée Du plaisir que prends en lui. Hé! Mon ami Plût à Dieu que mon mari Je ne visse de trente ans! Nous nous don’rions du bon temps.

Si je perds ma renommée Pour l’amour de mon ami, Point n’en dois être blamée, Car il est coincte et joli. Hé! Mon ami, Je n’ai bon jour ni demi Avec ce mari méchant. Je ferai pis que devant.

Song 14 - Ardent f​ rom ​Trois Rondels dans le Style Ancien - Georges Hüe (1858-1948) and Paul Arosa (1874-19??)

Viens ça, viens que je te mignarde, Mon petit coeur, mon angelot; Que mon baiser mette au repos Ta bouche rose et babillarde.

Ton ris léger qui me bombarde, M’ardoit tout vif tel un brûlot; Viens ça, viens que je te mignarde, Mon petit coeur, mon angelot;

Au soleil que le printemps darde, Le jardin d’amour est éclos, Viens y guerir à huis bien clos, Le mal ardent qui me poignarde, Viens ça, viens que je te mignarde,

Song 15 - La Belle Jeunesse ​from ​Chansons Gaillardes – Francis Poulenc and Anon

Il faut s’aimer toujours Et ne s’épouser guère. Il faut faire l’amour Sans curé ni notaire.

Cessez, messieurs, d’etre épouseurs, Ne visez qu’aux tirelires, Ne visez qu’aux tourelours, Cessez, messieurs, d’etre épouseurs, Ne visez qu’aux coeurs. Cessez, messieurs, d’etre épouseurs, Holà, messieurs, ne visez plus qu’aux coeurs.

Pourquoi se marier, Quand les femmes des autres Ne se font pas prier Pour devenir les nôtres. Quand leurs ardeurs, Quand leurs faveurs, Cherchent nos tirelires, Cherchent nos tourelours, Cherchent nos coeurs.

(repeat)

Il faut s’aimer toujours Et ne s’épouser guère. Il faut faire l’amour Sans curé ni notaire. Cessez, messieurs, d’etre épouseurs, Holà, messieurs, ne visez plus qu’aux coeurs.

SHORT BREAK

Song 16 - Sarabande–Albert Roussel (1869-1937) and René Chalupt Op 20/2

Les jets d’eau dansent des sarabandes Sur l’herbe parfumée des boulingrins: Il y a des rumeurs de soie dans le jardin Et de mystérieuses présences. Sur le marbre rose d’une margelle, Trois tourterelles Se sont posées Comme sur tes lèvres trois baisers; Leurs plumes s’effeuillent dans le basin. Les fleurs fraîches des marronniers Neigent lentment sur tes seins Et font frissonner ta chair nue Car tu es nue Sous ton manteau. Et c’est pour toi que les jets d’eau Dansent de sveltes sarabandes, Que le parc est plein de présences Et que les tourterelles blanches, Comme de vivantes guirlandes, Viennent fleurir au bord de l’eau.

Song 17 - Spleen ​from L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue (1878-1947)

Dans un vieux square où l’océan Du mauvais temps met son séant Sur un banc triste aux yeux de pluie C’est d’une blonde Rosse et gironde Que je m’ennuie Dans ce Cabaret du Néant Qu’est notre vie.

Song 18 - Air du Poète f​ rom L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue

Au pays de P​ apouasie J’ai caressé la​ Pouasie…​ La grâce que je vous souhaite C’est de n’etre pas ​Papouète.​

Song 19 - La Poulpe f​ rom L​ e Bestiaire – Louis Durey​ ​and Guillaume Apollinaire Text Jetant son encre vers les cieux, Suçant le sang de ce qu’il aime Et le trouvant délicieux, Ce monstre inhumain c’est moi-même.

Song 20 - Les joues en feu ​from L​ es Joues en Feu – Georges Auric (1899-1983) and Raymond Radiguet (1903-1923)

Insolemment à la beauté je me voue Raison de plus pour ne plus penser qu’à vous En plein éte fallait-il que je l’avoue Ni plus ni moins le soleil ou le courroux En deux pêches transformera vos deux joues

Song 21 - L’Insinuant ​from T​ rois Poèmes de Paul Valéry ​ – ​Louis Durey and Paul Valéry (1871-1945) 1:30

Ô courbes, méandre, Secrets du menteur, Est-il art plus tendre Que cette lenteur?

Je sais où je vais, Je t’y veux conduire, Mon dessin mauvais N’est pas de te nuire.

Quoi-que souriante,

En pleine fierté, Tant de liberté Te désoriente!

Ô courbes, méandre, Secrets du menteur, Je veux faire attendre Le mot le plus tendre.

Song 22 - Sur une jeune fille ​from O​ des Anacréontiques – Albert Roussel and Anon, translated by Leconte de Lisle

La fille de Tantalos Fut, dit-on, changée en rocher Sur les montagnes des Phrygiens, Et la fille de Pandiôn Fut faite hirondelle Et s’envola.

Mais moi, que je devienne miroir, Afin que tu me regardes! Que je sois ta tunique, Ô jeune fille, Afin que tu me portes! Que je sois une eau pure, Afin de laver ton corps; Une essence, pour te parfumer; Une écharpe, pour ton sein; Un collier de perles, pour ton cou; Une sandale, pour que tu me foules de ton pied!

Song 23 - Bonne d’enfant ​from C​ ocardes – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau

Técla notre âge d’or, Pipe, Carnot, Joffre, J’offre à toute personne ayant des nevralgies, Girafe, noce, Un bonjour de Gustave, Ave Maria de Gounod. Rosière Air de Mayol, Touring Club, phonographe, Affiche crime en couleur. Piano mécanique, Nick Carter. C’est du joli. Liberté, egalité, fraternité!

Song 24 - Le Grenouille Américaine ​from L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue

La grenouille Américaine Me regarde par-dessus Ses bésicles du futaine. Ses yeux sont des grogs massus Dépourvus de jolitaine. Je pense à Casadesus Qui n’a pas fait de musique Sur cette scène d’amour Dont le parfum nostalgique Sort d’une boîte d’Armour. Argus de table tu gardes L'âme du crapaud Vanglor Ô bouillon qui me regardes Avec tes lunettes d’or.

Song 25 - J’ai deux amours – Vincent Scotto (1874-1952) and Géo Koger​ ​(1894-1975)

J’ai deux amours, Mon pays et Paris. Par eux toujours, Mon coeur est ravi. Manhattan est belle, Mais à quoi bon le nier, Ce qui m’ensorcelle C’est Paris tout entier.

(repeat)

La voir un jour C’est mon rêve joli. J’ai deux amours, Mon pays et Paris.

Song 26 - Domino ​from S​ ept Quatrains de Raymond Radiguet – Georges Auric and Raymond Radiguet

Le domino, jeu des ménages Embellit les soirs de campagne. Du grand-père écoutons l’adage: “Qui triche enfant finit au bagne”.

Song 27 - Locutions f​ rom ​Six Poésies de Jean Cocteau – Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) and Jean Cocteau

Fraiche comme une rose Sage comme une image Votre coeur en forme de coeur C’est bien rare!

Franc comme l’or, rose la rose Toutes les roses perdent leurs joues Sur le tapis combien de masques? Je suis pâle comme la mort.

Song 28 - Le souvenir ​from Q​ uatre Mélodies – Henri Sauguet (1901-1989) and Anon (based on Friedrich von Schiller, 1759-1805)

Il éclipsait tous les jeunes gens Par sa beauté angélique; Son regard était doux comme celui du soleil de mai réfléchi par les eaux: Et ses baisers comparables aux joies célestes, M'en ivraient de bonheur.

Telles s’unissent deux flames légères; Tels en se mariant à la voix les accords de la harpe Forment une divine harmonie; Nos âmes s’abandonnaient à la volupté;. Elles s’unissaient, se confondaient entre elles. Nos joues brûlantes frémissaient de plaisir; Le ciel et la terre disparaissaient à nos yeux. Il n’est plus et c’est en vain que ma douleur plaintive gémit Sur son tombeau. Il est mort, et le reste de ma vie, Ne sera plus qu’un long soupir.

Song 29 - La dernière valse f​ rom ​Une Revue – Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) and Maurice Donnay (1859-1945) and Henri Duvernois (1875-1937)

Les feuilles tombent, c’est l’automne. Tu pars, tout est fini! Ecoute le vent monotone Dans la forêt sans nid. Dans sa tristesse la nature Révèle à ma raison Que l’amour est une aventure Qui dure une saison.

Mais ce soir valsons ensemble, C’est pour la dernière fois. Presse encore ma main qui tremble, Que j’entende encore ta voix, Et si tu vois des larmes Qui brillent dans mes yeux, Peut-être alors mes yeux Auront des charmes délicieux.

Dernier baiser, dernière étreinte, Tu pars! Voici le jour! Une étoile s’est éteinte Dans le ciel de l’amour. Cruel, cruel, tu vois les larmes Qui coulent de mes yeux. Mais les larmes n’ont plus de charmes Pour les coeurs oublieux.

PROGRAMME NOTES

Song 1 - Non, la fidélité f​ rom ​Six Chansons Françaises – Germaine Tailleferre ​ ​(1892-1983) and Gabriel-Charles de Lattaignant (1697-1779) This song is dedicated to Denise Bourdet; a writer and society lady who had one of the most well regarded literary salons in Paris between the wars.​ ​ The ​Six Chansons Françaises w​ ere written in 1929 and are settings of texts from the 15t​ h ​ to 18​th ​ centuries. Some of the texts are anonymous and all the named authors are men, but all the texts were carefully chosen by Tailleferre to present life from a woman’s point of view. There is a recording of the set by Jane Bathori with Tailleferre herself playing.

Germaine Tailleferre, the only female member of L​ es Six, ​was the only one who remained true to the group’s original neo-classical roots. She wanted to build on the greatness of the music of the past, rather than tear it down and do something completely new. She is still little known outside France, but wrote 12 operas, 4 ballets, 2 piano concertos and a huge amount of piano and chamber music, as well as music for film and television. In 1926 she married the American artist and caricaturist Ralph Barton; they lived in New York for a year then returned to Paris and divorced soon after that. Tailleferre escaped back to America during the Second World War, returning to France in 1946.

Gabriel-Charles de Lattaignant was a singer, poet and part-time composer. He was born into an aristocratic family, the owners of the Château de Baronville. As the youngest son he was destined for the priesthood; he was ordained but spent time much of his time singing in the taverns in Paris. He is quoted as saying: “​I light my genius in the sun and turn it off in the mud​”. At the end of his life he repented of his dissolute lifestyle and entered a monastery, where he wrote poetry and music that was a little more sombre.

Song 2 - Chanson á boire ​from C​ hansons Gaillardes – Francis Poulenc ​ ​(1899-1963​) ​ and Anon The ​Chansons Gaillardes w​ ere written in 1925-26, and epitomise the spirit of L​ es années folles. ​ ​They are all settings of anonymous texts from the 17t​ h ​ century or earlier. The texts are taken from a set of 4 books published in 1765 (did Poulenc have a copy of these – there seem to be no records of any reprints between 1765 and 1925?) entitled ​Anthologie Française, ou Chansons choisies depuis le 13ème siècle jusqu’à present. T​ he 4t​ h​ book has a supplement with the title C​ hansons Gaillardes, ​which contains 6 of the 8 texts of this cycle, the other 2 are in volume 3. The premiere, on 2n​ d​ May 1926, was the first collaboration of Poulenc and Pierre Bernac, a then unknown baritone; over the next decades Poulenc and Bernac were to become one of the most famous and well-respected song duos in the world.

Poulenc was born in Paris, a city he loved all his life, the son of the joint owner of a pharmaceutical company. He was expected to follow his father into the company and was therefore not allowed to enter music college, so was largely self-taught as a composer, though he did have piano lessons from the age of 5. In his late teens Poulenc met Auric and Satie and so was introduced into the circle that later became L​ es Six.​ He was a conscript in the French army during the latter part of the First World War. Through the 1920s Poulenc became more and more well known as a composer; in 1923 Diaghilev commissioned his ballet ​Les Biches. S​ uccess from his compositions and an inheritance from his father allowed him to buy a country house at Noizay, 230km south-west of Paris. The death of

Poulenc’s friend and fellow composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud in 1936 and a visit to Rocamadour in south-western France led to an awakening of his Roman Catholicism which resulted in a new seriousness in his musical style and several religious works including the ​Litanies á la Vierge Noire a​ nd the Mass in G. In 1936 Poulenc renewed his partnership with the baritone Pierre Bernac; they gave regular recitals together until the 1950s. Poulenc served briefly as a soldier during the Second World War, in an anti-aircraft unit at Bordeaux. During the Occupation he was in Paris, giving recitals with Bernac which included many acts of defiance against the Nazis such as programming songs with texts by poets active in the Resistance (the French audiences knew about these but the Nazis were unaware). A visit to London in 1945 was a huge success with Poulenc and Britten giving a performance of Poulenc’s ​Double Piano Concerto a​ t the Albert Hall, and Poulenc and Bernac giving recitals of French song at the Wigmore Hall. In 1953 La Scala commissioned Poulenc to write his opera D​ ialogues des Carmélites ​ ​which was premiered in 1957. His opera L​ a Voix Humaine ​with a libretto by Cocteau was premiered at the ​Opéra-Comique in 1959 under Cocteau’s direction. Poulenc died on 30t​ h​ January 1963, expressing a wish that none of his music was to be played at his funeral, instead Marcel Dupré played Bach.

Song 3 - A son page f​ rom ​Poèmes de Ronsard – Francis Poulenc and Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) A son page i​ s dedicated to Jeanne Bathori, a singer and pianist who sang at La Scala under Toscanini and gave the premieres of many French vocal works in the first 3 decades of the 20t​ h ​ century. Her recordings include one of Tailleferre’s S​ ix Chansons Françaises ​with the composer at the piano.

Ronsard was regarded as the greatest man of literature of Renaissance France, and the 400​th anniversary of his birth was marked with much celebration. ​La Revue Musicale p​ ublished a luxurious special issue containing 8 specially commissioned songs, by Ravel, Roussel, Caplet, Dukas, Roland-Manuel, Aubert, Delage and Arthur Honegger, the only one of ​Les Six​ who was invited to contribute. Poulenc was very offended that he was not invited (especially as Honegger was) and wrote this cycle in an attempt to ‘prove himself’ as a composer worthy to set the great Ronsard. Poulenc was initially proud of these songs, which are longer, more complex, and more ‘serious’ than anything he’d written until now, but criticism from his friends, particularly Auric, turned him against them. From then on, he resolutely turned his back on these songs, and his association with this ‘classical’ French poet, in favour of the poets of his own generation. As a result, in the near-century since they were written, they have never recovered an established place in the repertoire.

Pierre de Ronsard, the ‘Prince of Poets’, spent two months at the age of 13 in Scotland, as page to Madeleine de Valois when she was married to James V of Scotland. After this he was attached to the households of several diplomats and dignitaries including the Cardinal du Bellay-Langey. However, his diplomatic career was cut short by oncoming deafness, and he decided to devote himself to study, writing poetry and translating the classics into vernacular French. He settled in Paris and became a member of the ​Pléiades g​ roup of poets, who took their name from the group of 7 Alexandrian poets of the 3r​ d​ century BC who took their name from the 7 stars of the Pleiades star cluster. During the 1550s Ronsard published 4 volumes of odes and his A​ mours de Cassandre ​(1552), dedicated to Cassandre Salviati, a 15-year old girl that he fell in love with at a ball in Blois and followed to her

father’s château but who he was not allowed to marry as it was thought an unsuitable match. Many other volumes of poetry followed, including ​Hymns o​ f 1555, dedicated to Margaret de Valois, and Elégies, Mascarades et Bergeries i​ n 1565. King Charles IX gave Ronsard royal patronage. When Charles IX died in 1574 Ronsard retired from royal life, living at his properties in Vendôme and in Paris.

Song 4 - La maîtresse volage ​from ​Chansons Gaillardes – Francis Poulenc and Anon This was written at Amboise in December 1924. Amboise is famous as the town where Leonardo da Vinci lived and died and is under 10 km from Poulenc’s country residence at Noizay. ​La maîtresse volage​ ​is the opening song of C​ hansons Gaillardes, ​setting the scene for the remaining seven. The original poem is titled ​Les Deux Pucelages (​ The Two Virginities) but Poulenc preferred to reveal the joke in the telling of the story.

Song 5 - L’infidèle f​ rom L​ es Soirées de Pétrograde – Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) and René Chalupt (1885-1957) Les Soirées de Pétrograde ​comprises 12 miniatures, divided into 2 groups of six, which have the titles L’Ancien Regime a​ nd ​La Revolution. ​Milhaud and Chalupt’s light-hearted take on the recent events of the Revolution was thought of as quite offensive to some of the many Russian refugees in Paris at this time.​ ​The songs are dedicated to Valentine Gross, a surrealist painter, collaborator with Diaghilev for Les Ballets Russes ​and wife of Jean Hugo, great grandson of Victor Hugo. Catherine Ivanovna refers to the great-great-granddaughter of Tsar Nicholas I. She was the last member of the Romanov family to be born (in 1915) before the fall of the dynasty. She is second cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She escaped to Sweden with her grandmother at the Revolution, and afterwards lived in Serbia, then England, then Italy where she married a diplomat, then Uruguay where she died in 2007.

Darius Milhaud was the most prolific of ​Les Six, ​ writing more songs than Poulenc. He was born in Marseilles and studied at the Paris Conservatoire where his fellow students included Honegger and Tailleferre, future co-members of L​ es Six​. From 1917-19 he lived in Brazil as secretary to the French Ambassador there, Paul Claudel, whose poems Milhaud would set many times in his songs. His ballet Le Boeuf sur le Toit (​ 1920) contains many Brazilian references (as well as lending its name to one of Montparnasse’s most notorious cafés) and the S​ audades do Brasil ​(also 1920) is a suite of 12 dances evoking 12 neighbourhoods of Rio. Milhaud was also very keen on jazz, which he first heard on a visit to New York in 1922. The Nazi invasion of France forced Milhaud, who was Jewish, to escape to America. He got a teaching job at Mills College in Oakland, California. His opera B​ olivar ​ was written there in 1943. Milhaud’s most famous student at Mills College in the 1940s was the jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who named his first son Darius after Milhaud. Another of Milhaud’s students was the song-writer Burt Bacharach, who he taught at the Music Academy of the West summer school that Milhaud founded in 1947 alongside Schoenberg, Otto Klemperer, Lotte Lehmann and Ernst Bloch among others. Milhaud taught alternate years at Mills College and the Paris Conservatoire until ill health forced him to retire in 1971.

René Chalupt was born in Paris. By 1945, 83 of his poems had been set by 27 composers, including Milhaud, Auric, Tailleferre, Roussel and Satie. He worked as a music critic for various publications

including the ​International Music Review. H​ is volumes of poetry include L​ a Lampe et le Miroir ​(1911), Interludes (​ 1912), ​Nocturnes (​ 1914) and ​Onchets ​(1926). He wrote a biography of Gershwin in 1949 and edited a compilation of Ravel’s letters in 1956.

Song 6 - Ballet ​from ​Poèmes de Ronsard – Francis Poulenc ​ ​and Pierre de Ronsard Ballet i​ s dedicated to the Brazilian soprano Vera Janacopoulos. She was of Greek descent and moved to Paris to study violin with George Enescu but abandoned that to concentrate on singing. Her career took her all over Europe, the US, Argentina, Brazil, Java and Sumatra. She performed the premiere of several songs by Charles Griffes, heard elsewhere in the 2020 London Song Festival. She was an ambassador for the works of fellow Brazilian Heitor Villa-Lobos and in 1940 she returned to Brazil, teaching at the University of São Paulo and presenting a classical music programme on Radio Gazeta for 8 years.

The song references the River Meander, which runs through what was part of the ancient Greek province of Caria in Asia Minor but is now part of Turkey. Its very winding course gave rise to the word used for the winding pattern of any river.

The song mentions cranes, the world’s tallest flying birds, which can grow to 176 cm long. There are 15 species of cranes, in the group Gruiformes, and they migrate over long distances. They are omnivorous, with a diet including small mammals, fish, and seeds and berries. Cranes do not exist in South America for some reason but do on every other continent apart from Antarctica. In mythology, especially in Asia, cranes are a symbol of happiness and eternal youth and in Greek and Roman times the dance of the cranes was a symbol of joy and a celebration of life.

Song 7 - Danseuse f​ rom ​Quatre Petites Mélodies – Erik Satie (1866-1925) and Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) Danseuse ​was written in October 1920 and was also set by Honegger.

Erik Satie was born in Honfleur in Normandy. He entered the Paris Conservatoire age 13, where he was variously described as ‘untalented’, worthless’, ‘the laziest student in the conservatoire’ and his piano playing as ‘laborious’. Discouraged, he decided to enter the military, but was discharged after a few months when he deliberately infected himself with bronchitis. Satie moved to Montmartre age 21 and socialised with the artistic circle that frequented the ​Chat Noir ​Café–Cabaret. He published the first of his ​Gymnopédies f​ or piano in 1888, age 22. In his mid-twenties he joined the Rosicrucian Order and wrote religious music for them as an official composer. By the time Satie was 30 his savings had all been used up and he moved to the suburb of Arceuil. His religious phase was now over. From 1899 he worked as a cabaret pianist, writing several songs including the still popular ​La Diva de L’Empire. ​At the age of 39 Satie enrolled as a mature student of Roussel at the Schola Cantorum. He met Cocteau in 1915 and in 1916 they began work on a ballet P​ arade​ which was premiered in 1917 by the ​Ballets Russes ​with sets and costumes by Picasso and choreography by Massine. Shortly after this Satie formed a group of 7 cutting edge composers that he called ​Les Nouveaux Jeunes. ​He left the group unexpectedly and Cocteau renamed the remaining members as L​ es Six. ​Satie, always irascible and bad-tempered, would quarrel at some time with almost all of them. He became involved with the Dada m​ ovement and his circle widened to include Picabia, Man Ray, Tristan Tzara and Marcel

Duchamp. One of Satie’s last works was the music for ​Entr’acte, a​ n experimental film by René Clair. His heavy drinking (especially of absinthe) had taken its toll, and Satie died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1925 age 59.

Jean Cocteau, the “magician of modern wit”, a man with a brilliant mind, had many talents; he was a poet, novelist, playwright, film-maker, designer and visual artist. He was born in Yvelines, son of a lawyer who committed suicide when Satie was 9. Cocteau left home at 15 and published L​ a Lampe d’Aladin, h​ is first volume of poetry age 19. His next volume, L​ e Prince Frivole g​ ave rise ​ ​to his nickname of ‘The Frivolous Prince’ in Bohemian circles. His friends at this time included Marcel Proust and André Gide. During the First World War Cocteau was an ambulance driver. He met and befriended Apollinaire, Picasso, and Modigliani. In 1917 he collaborated with Diaghilev, Picasso and Satie for the ballet​ Parade.​ In the early 1920s Cocteau was the inspiration behind the formation of ​Les Six. ​In 1918 he met the 15-year old poet Raymond Radiguet. They had a stormy relationship and Cocteau arranged for the publication of Radiguet’s first novel ​Le Diable au Corps ​(1923). Radiguet’s sudden death in December that year left Cocteau devastated, and that, together with meeting the opium-addicted administrator of the Monte Carlo Opera Louis Laloy, was the probable cause of Cocteau’s long-term opium addiction. Cocteau wrote the libretto for Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus Rex (​ 1927) and published his novel L​ es Enfants Terribles ​in 1929. In 1930 Cocteau made his first film, L​ e Sang d’un Poète ​and wrote the play ​La Voix Humaine, l​ ater made into an opera by Poulenc. Cocteau’s politics were naturally right-leaning, and during the Nazi occupation he met regularly for round-table discussions with French and German intellectuals and was accused of collaboration after the war. He was cleared of wrong-doing on account of his (failed) attempts to save friends such as the Jewish Max Jacob. During the 1940s Cocteau concentrated on film-making; his films include ​La Belle et la Bête (​ Beauty and the Beast, 1946) and ​Le Testament d’Orphée (​ 1960). ​In 1956 Cocteau decorated the C​ hapelle Saint-Pierre ​ in V​ illefranche-sur-Mer​ with mural paintings. Cocteau died of a heart attack at his ​château ​ in M​ illy-la-Forêt,​ ​Essonne, France, on 11 October 1963 at the age of 74.

Song 8 - Fumée f​ rom ​Trois ​ ​Poèmes ​ ​de Jean Cocteau – Darius Milhaud and Jean Cocteau Fumée​ is dedicated to Erik Satie. The Médrano Circus was founded in 1872 as the Cirque Fernando in the town of Vierzon in the Cher department. It moved to Paris the following year, on a site near Montmartre where it attracted artists such as Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, who used it as a subject for their paintings. In 1897 the lease was bought by Gerónimo Medrano, who revived its fortunes. Picasso and Braque continued its artistic associations, and after the First World War the 3 Fratellini brothers, a trio of clowns, became stars of the Parisian entertainment scene. The circus lasted until 1963. The name is still present though and is used by a touring circus.

Song 9- Miel de Narbonne f​ rom ​Cocardes – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau and Song 10 - Enfant de Troupe f​ rom ​Cocardes – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau Poulenc’s C​ ocardes, ​his only cycle of Cocteau songs, ​ ​was premiered at a ​Spectacle-Concert ​ organised by Cocteau, which took place on 21s​ t​ February 1920 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. This was a sumptuous affair involving theatre, opera, ballet (the premiere of Milhaud’s L​ e Boeuf sur le ​Toit) and circus (the Fratellini family of clowns from the Cirque Médrano were highlights of the evening); it was

billed as a fundraiser for military hospitals and can be said to have been the event that introduced and set the scene for the artistic exuberance of ​Les Années Folles. ​This performance was of the original instrumentation of cornet, trombone, bass-drum, triangle, cymbal and violin. The cycle is dedicated to Georges Auric. Before the show began, Cocteau made a speech in which he described the songs as “fake folk-songs, just like our fake circus and t​ rompe-l’oeil ​theatre.” They are an evocation of Paris, full of references that the audience in 1920 would have recognised easily. As Poulenc wrote in his Journal, these songs evoke; “the smell of frites, the accordion, ​Piver p​ erfume; in a word, all that I loved at that age, and that I still love. Why not?” The title ‘Cockades’ is a reference to the tri-coloured patriotism that in 1920, so soon after the end of the Great War, was very present in French culture. The poems use a jokey ploy of each line beginning with the syllable the previous line ends with, this is even carried through into the titles of the songs (​Miel de NarBONNE-BONNE d’enfant)​ . Miel de Narbonne​ uses a line of childish dialect: V​ olez-vous jouer avec moa? Moabite ​could refer to the Moabite Stone (Mesha Stele) in the Louvre Museum, an inscribed stone set up around 840 BC by King Mesha of Moab, in the Middle East. Dame de la croix-bleue ​could refer to an employee of the humanitarian organisation, ​La Fédération Internationale de la Croix-Bleue,​ founded in Geneva in 1877. Enfant de Troupe​ can refer to an apprentice acrobat or a military cadet, making it an appropriate title for a song that combines the imagery of the circus and the army. Soldiers on leave in the 1920s wore blue uniforms

Song 11 - Le Paon ​from L​ e Bestiaire – Louis Durey (1888-1979) and Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) The full title of this work is L​ e Bestiare ou Cortège D’Orphée; ​it comprises 26 songs

Louis Durey was the oldest of ​Les Six.​ He was born in Paris, and largely self-taught as a composer, much influenced by Debussy. His ​L’Offrande Lyrique ​(1914) is a 12-tone work, rare in France at this time. He became a member of L​ es Six ​through the recommendation of Milhaud and contributed a piano piece to their joint project of 1920, L​ ’Album des Six. ​However, to Cocteau’s annoyance he did not contribute to their next collaboration, the ballet ​Les Mariés de la Tour Eiffel (​ 1921). After this, his increasingly left-wing views (by the mid-1930s he had become a communist) estranged him from the group. He moved away from Paris to Saint-Tropez, where he wrote his only opera ​L’Occasion (​ 1923), returning to Paris in 1930. He was an active member of the Resistance under the Nazi occupation. In the 1960s he set texts by Ho Chi Minh and Mao Zedong in protest at the Vietnam War. Durey died at Saint-Tropez in 1979.

Wilhelm Albert Apolinary Kostrowitzky had a Polish mother and an unknown father. He was born in Rome and moved to France in his late teens where he adopted the name Guillaume Apollinaire. He became a defining member of the artistic community of Paris and a leader of the avant-garde and coined the terms ‘Cubism’ and ‘Surrealism’. He wrote the preface to the first Cubist exhibition outside Paris, in Brussels in 1911, and gave the opening address at the Salon de la Section d’Or exhibition of 1912, the most important Cubist exhibition of the pre-war period. In 1911 Apollinaire was arrested on suspicion of stealing the ​Mona Lisa a​ nd some Egyptian statues​ ​from the Louvre but was released a

week later when it became obvious that it wasn’t him. The first use of the term ​Surrealism w​ as by Apollinaire in reference to Erik Satie’s ballet P​ arade ​(1917). Apollinaire was an infantry officer during the First World War. He was wounded in 1916, and wrote the play ​Les Mamelles de Tirésias,​ which was made into an opera by Poulend in 1945 ​ ​while recovering. Apollinaire died of the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918.

Durey and Poulenc wrote their B​ estiare ​cycles at the same time, as Durey wrote in his C​ atalogue Commenté​: “​The collection of quatrains making up Apollinaire's 'Bestiaire', illustrated by Dufy's woodcuts, had scarcely been published. Without consulting each other at all, ignorant of our respective projects, Francis Poulenc and I took hold of these texts and set them to music, mine begun a little bit earlier and finishing later, framing those of my friend. But whereas Francis set only 12 of the pieces (of which he retained only 6), I devoted my energy to the whole of these 26 little poems. ​ ​It was not as easy as it looked at first glance, because, though some of them called irresistibly for music, others, on the contrary, proved more daunting for me: I managed to get through these (La Chenille, Le Poulpe, Le Paon, La Colombe) helped by the strictest simplicity​.”

Song 12 - L’Oiseau en Cage ​from S​ héhérazade – Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) and Tristan Klingsor (Arthur Justin Léon Leclère, 1874-1966) ​ ​ L'Oiseau en Cage w​ as written in 1922-23,; Koechlin wrote 13 Shéhérazade songs covering 2 opuses, 56 and 84. Shéhérazade (or Scheherazade) is the principal female character and also narrator of the Middle-Eastern folk-tales compiled in Arabic (with another strand in Middle Persian) called the ​One Thousand and One Nights. ​In most versions of the story, the king Shahryar finds out that his wife is being unfaithful to him. He therefore decides to marry a new virgin every day and behead the previous day’s wife, so denying them any chance to be unfaithful to him. He marries and kills many hundreds of daily virgins and is then introduced to Scheherazade, the Vizier’s daughter, who is to be the next virgin/wife. Scheherazade is very well read and has a beautiful voice; she offers to tell the king a story. He says yes and is entranced, but Scheherazade stops mid-way through. The king tells her to carry on, but she says no, as dawn is breaking, so the king spares her life for a day so she can resume the following night. Next night Scheherazade finishes her story, and starts another, but stops again mid-way through as dawn is breaking. This carries on for 1001 nights (the stories of the ​ One Thousand and One Nights​), after which Scheherazade tells the king that she has no more stories to tell. But over the past 1001 nights the king has fallen in love with her, he marries and makes her his queen her instead of executing her, and they live happily ever after.

Charles Koechlin’s family came from Alsace, but he was born in Paris. His family wanted him to become an engineer, but his studies were interrupted by an attack of tuberculosis, so were abandoned. After an argument with his family he entered the Paris Conservatoire age 23 and studied with Massenet and then Fauré. His fellow students included Reynaldo Hahn and Georges Enescu. Fauré became a major influence in his life and Koechlin write his first ever biography in 1927. Koechlin was highly regarded as a teacher, and taught Poulenc for a time, but in 1926 he failed, by only 2 votes, be get elected as a professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire. One of the two

who voted against him was Roussel. Koechlin did however teach at the Schola Cantorum from 1935-39. Throughout his life, he was very keen to support new music and young composers. He was one of the founders, with Ravel, of the Societé Musicale Indépendante in 1910 and was a big supporter of the International Society for Contemporary Music and was for a time President of its French section. He made several visits to America where he lectured at the University of California at Berkeley, and in 1929 his symphonic poem L​ a Joie Païenne w​ on the Hollywood Bowl Prize for composition and was performed there, conducted by Eugene Goossens. In 1940 the French government offered him the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, but he refused the honour.

Tristan Klingsor, real name ​Arthur Justin Léon Leclère was a big fan of Wagner, as can be guessed from his assumed names, and also a big fan of Arthurian and Breton mythology. He is most famous for writing the texts for Ravel’s song cycle S​ hérérazade,​ also set by Koechlin. Ravel dedicated the first of his ​Trois Chansons ​to Klingsor. Klingsor was also a painter; an exhibition of his in 1906 was rudely dismissed by Apollinaire as “merde”. He was a composer too, with several volumes of songs and piano music to his credit. Song 13 - Mon mari m’a diffamée f​ rom ​Six Chansons Françaises – Germaine Tailleferre and Anon This song is dedicated to Delfina Boutet de Monvel wife of the painter, sculptor, engraver and fashion illustrator Bernard Boutet de Monvel, known for his paintings of Morocco and of society figures, and for his drawings for fashion magazines. He worked closely with the designer Paul Poiret, and for V​ ogue and H​ arper’s Bazaar​ magazines. He married Delfina Edwards Bello, from the high society Edwards family in Chili, in 1921, having first met her in 1921 in Biarritz. He painted several portraits of her over the years.

Song 14 - Ardent f​ rom ​Trois Rondels dans le Style Ancien - Georges Hüe (1858-1948) and Paul Arosa (1874-19??) Georges Hüe born in Versailles and studied at the Paris Conservatoire with Gounod and César Franck. He won the Prix de Rome in 1879. His output includes 7 full length operas, the most popular of which was ​Dans l’Ombre de la Cathédrale ​(1921) which was revived several times during the 1920s. Hüe was fascinated by the East; in 1924 he wrote S​ iang-Sin,​ a ballet-pantomime for a Chinese spring festival. There are many choral works in his catalogue, and F​ antaisie f​ or flute and orchestra. Both Debussy and Fauré admired his work.

The poems of Paul Arosa have it seems only been set by two composers, Georges Hüe and Florent Schmitt.

Song 15 - La Belle Jeunesse ​from ​Chansons Gaillardes – Francis Poulenc and Anon This is the seventh song of C​ hansons Gaillardes​. Poulenc wrote of the set: “I​ am fond of this collection where I tried to show that outright obscenity can adapt itself to music. I detest smutty suggestiveness. The accompaniments are very difficult but well written, I think.

Song 16 - Sarabande – Albert Roussel (1869-1937) and René Chalupt Op 20/2 Sarabande ​is dedicated to the soprano Lucy Vuillemin, who gave the first performance with her husband, the composer Louis Vuillemin playing the piano on 27t​ h​ December 1919 in the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris. This is the second song of a pair that form Roussel’s Op 20, the first being the much better known L​ e Bachelier de Salamanque. P​ ierre Bernac calls this song Roussel’s most beautiful mélodie.

Roussel was born in northern France, and in his early twenties joined the French navy. He served on the frigate ​Iphigénie ​in Vietnam, a posting that gave him his first taste for the Orient that was to play such an important part in his musical life. He resigned from the navy in 1894 when he was 25 in order to study music; he studied composition with Henri Dutilleux’s grandfather and with Vincent D’Indy.​ ​He served as an ambulance driver on the Western Front during the first world war, and afterwards taught composition at the Schola Cantorum de Paris, where his students included Erik Satie, Edgar Varése and Martinu. He was interested in jazz (which features in several of his compositions including the song ​Jazz dans la Nuit ​(1928), and his works include several ballets, 4 symphonies and 35 songs. He was much loved; his 60​th ​ birthday in 1929 was marked by a concert and a special issue of ​Le Revue Musicale ​which included A​ Roussel, ​a song by Delage with a text by Chalupt which began ​ Roussel, marin favorisé.

Song 17 - Spleen ​from L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947)​ ​and Song 18 - Air du Poète f​ rom L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue Ludions ​is one of Satie’s last works, written in 1923. It is a cycle of 5 songs, each lasting less than a minute. A ludion,​ a​ lso known in English as a Cartesian Diver, is a small figurine, often shaped like a devil or imp, or a hollow ball, that is used as a scientific toy. It is placed in an airtight, water-filled container, and can be made to rise, sink or spin by applying external pressure to the liquid.

In A​ ir du Poète, t​ he word ​papouasie ​can either refer, satirically, to a camp, fey form of poetry, or to the country Papua New Guinea.

The poet and essayist Léon-Paul Fargue was a Parisian. He was already in print at the age of 18 and his well-known poem T​ ancrède​ was published in the magazine ​Pan ​when he was 19. He was opposed to the surrealists, writing poetry that was down-to-earth, atmospheric and detailed. Fargue loved Paris and wrote 2 books about the city: D​ ’Après Paris (​ 1931)​ ​and ​Le Pièton de Paris (​ 1939). Fargue and Satie were friends, they shared a love of Paris, of nocturnal strolls in the city, and both were eccentric to a degree. They were both members of ​Les Potassons, w​ ho met regularly at the bookshop La Maison des Amis. In November 1929, Fargue’s publisher Leon-Pierre Quniut wrote: “​ Fargue has a childlike love of Paris, with its godforsaken little cafés, its bars, its streets and its nightlife that never ends. He must be in robust health and have a highly resilient character; during the day he works as an industrialist, and at night he is always on the move. He is constantly seen with elegant women, Americans. He is close to fifty years of age, yet leads the life of a gigolo by night, hypnotising everyone he meets with the charm of his speech.” Fargue was a friend of Ravel and wrote a book of recollections about him. Ravel set one of his poems, Rêves, t​ o music. He died in 1947 and is buried in Montparnasse cemetery.

Song 19 - La Poulpe f​ rom L​ e Bestiaire – Louis Durey​ ​and Guillaume Apollinaire In all countries and cultures the octopus has been a symbol of the bad side of nature. The Gorgon of Greek mythology, a treacherous woman with her hair made of snakes was said to have been inspired by the octopus or squid, and the Kraken, the legendary sea monster of Norse mythology, is an octopus writ large. Negative images of the octopus recur in art and literature: Victor Hugo’s book Travailleurs de la Mer (​ 1866) features a battle with an octopus, the pet octopus in Ian Fleming’s short story ​Octopussy (​ 1966) is a killer, and the Japanese woodblock artist Katsushika Hokusai’s print ​Tako to ama (​ The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife) depicts the sexually charged dying moments of a diver for pearls being smothered by the tentacles of an giant octopus. However, octopuses are rarely dangerous to humans, they do not suck blood, and only one, the blue-ringed octopus, has a bite that is lethal for humans. Their ink is used as a smoke-screen to enable them to escape attackers, and (particular in the case of sharks) to interfere with a potential predator’s sense of smell.

Song 20 - Les joues en feu ​from L​ es Joues en Feu – Georges Auric (1899-1983) and Raymond Radiguet (1903-1923) Written in 1920, this is dedicated ​ ​to the painter Irène Lagut, who was famously kidnapped by Picasso. He had fallen in love with her and enlisted the help of Guillaume Apollinaire to abduct her to a house on the outskirts of Paris. She escaped but returned to Picasso of her own free will a week later. After that she and Picasso had a very rocky on-off relationship and decided to marry in 1916, but Irène changed her mind at the last minute and fled. They got together again briefly in 1923; Picasso’s painting ​The Lovers ​is said to be of them. Georges Auric was from Monpellier. He was considered the ‘elder statesman’ of ​Les Six​, giving advice to the others, it was he who suggested to Poulenc that he was going down the wrong road with his Poèmes de Ronsard ​ and that he should instead set contemporary poets, advice which Poulenc whole-heartedly followed​. H​ e studied with Vincent d’Indy at the Schola Cantorum de Paris as well as at the Paris Conservatoire. Auric became a protégé of Erik Satie and a friend of Cocteau and joined ​Les Six. ​He was appointed Director of the Paris Opéra 1962-68. He wrote much film music, including the famous waltz song from the film ​Moulin Rouge ​(1952) and the music for 11 of Cocteau’s films. There are several surviving recordings of Auric playing, including some piano duets by Satie, recorded with Poulenc in 1937. Auric’s politics were left wing; he joined the Association des Ecrivains et des Artistes Révolutionnaires and the communist party of France.

Raymond Radiguet, was the son of a newspaper cartoonist. He was young (just 15) and precocious when he became Cocteau’s boyfriend. This was a very stormy relationship; Radiguet was known as Monsieur ​ ​Bébé (​ Mr Baby) and he kept on threatening to have affairs with women; “​ Bébé est vicieuse, il aime les femmes”​ an exasperated Cocteau exclaimed on one occasion (notice the feminine adjective). He wrote his first novel ​Le Diable au Corp a​ t the age of 16. This tells the story of a married woman who has an affair with a 16-yearold boy and has many parallels with Radiguet’s own life; it caused a scandal. His 2​nd ​ novel L​ e Bal du Comte d’Orgel ​also deals with adultery. His volume of poetry L​ es Joues en Feu ​(Cheeks on Fire) dates from 1920. Radiguet died in 1923 of tuberculosis, age just 20. His funeral was organised by Coco Chanel.

Song 21 - L’Insinuant ​from T​ rois Poèmes de Paul Valéry ​ – ​Louis Durey and Paul Valéry (1871-1945) A copy of the manuscript of this song was sent to me by Arlette Durey, Louis’ daughter from Paris. L’Insinuant w​ as written St Tropez on 15​th ​ Dec 1921. Durey was sent the text by Ida Godebska, who was also the dedicatee of Manuel de Falla’s S​ iete Canciones Populares Españolas,​ who urged him to set it to music. This is the first song of the ​Trois Poèmes de Paul Valéry,​ which were premiered by Jane Bathori 1947 in a broadcast by RDF (Radiodiffusion Française).

Paul Valéry was born on France’s Mediterranean coast to a Genoese mother and Corsican father. He lived in Paris though for most of his life. He worked for the Ministry of War, and as a private secretary for a former chief executive of the Havas new agency, and didn’t become a full-time writer until 1920, when he was 49. Valéry was elected to the Académie Française in 1925 after which he gave lectures on cultural and social issues and became very much a public figure in French life. He represented France at the League of Nations, serving on several of its Arts committees. In 1931 he founded the Collège International de Cannes, a private college teaching French language and culture and he held posts at a number of universities including the University of Nice. He is buried in his birth town of Sète.

Song 22 - Sur une jeune fille ​from ​Odes Anacréontiques – Albert Roussel and Anon, translated by Leconte de Lisle This is a setting of Anacreon’s Ode number 20 The daughter of Tantalus, who was changed into a rock, refers to Niobe, daughter of Tantalus the king of Lydia. Her pride in boasting about her 14 children and how wonderful they were to Leto, who only had two children (Apollo and Artemis), led to Artemis killing her 7 daughters and Apollo killing her 7 sons. Niobe fled back to her home at Mount Sipylus and was turned into a rock – Mount Sipylus has a natural rock formation that looks like a woman’s face; it is known as the ‘Weeping Rock’ as rainwater seeps through its porous limestone. The daughter of Pandion, who was changed into a swallow, refers to Procne, daughter of Pandion, the king of Athens. Procne married Tereus, king of Thrace. They were visited by Procne’s sister, Philomela. Tereus raped Philomela and tore out her tongue to stop her revealing the crime. Philomela wove a tapestry to show what Tereus had done, and the sisters took their revenge. Procne killed her own son by Tereus, boiled him, and served his severed head to his father, her husband, for a meal. Tereus took an axe and ran after the two sisters to kill them. They prayed to the gods for help and were turned into birds so they could fly away; Philomela into a nightingale and Procne into a swallow. The Phrygian mountains are on the Anatolian peninsular (modern-day Turkey). Phrygia was a kingdom in the western part of this area in classical antiquity.

Song 23 - Bonne d’enfant ​from C​ ocardes – Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau Técla is a Parisian jewellery shop, famous for its costume jewellery, the implication being that n​ otre âge d’or i​ s also fake (Cocteau called these songs ‘fake folk-songs’), Marie-François Carnot was a president of France assassinated in 1894, Joseph Joffre was a highly respected marshal of France, Félix

Mayol was a camp music hall star, the Touring Club de France was a cycling club founded in 1890, Nick Carter was a fictional detective who first appeared in America and was then translated into French via the film ​Nick Carter, le roi des detectives ​(1908). The French national motto at the end of the song references to the title of the cycle; ‘Cockades’, decorative knots of cloth worn as patriotic symbols, typically in hats.

Song 24 - Le Grenouille Américaine ​from L​ udions – Erik Satie and Léon-Paul Fargue Robert Casadesus was a pianist and composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire. From 1922 he had a project working with Ravel to record all Ravel’s piano works on piano rolls. From 1935 Casadesus taught at the American Conservatory at the Château de Fontainebleau, and shortly afterwards he and his family moved to America. They lived at Princeton, New Jersey, where a neighbour was Albert Einstein, with whom Casadesus played Mozart chamber music. He established the Fontainebleau School of Music at Newport, Rhode Island, which shortly moved to Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In 1946, the American Conservatory moved back to Fontainebleau in France, with Casadesus as its Director. He was involved until his death in 1972 and is still going strong. Armour Thyroid is a medication; a thyroid extract used to treat hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland (whose purpose is to release hormones that control metabolism) is underactive. Armour is made from dried animal thyroid glands and has a very distinctive odour. Argus (Argos) in Greek mythology is a primordial giant covered with eyes.

Song 25 - J’ai deux amours – Vincent Scotto (1874-1952) and Géo Koger​ ​(1894-1975) Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St Louis. Missouri. Asa teenager she worked as a waitress and lived on the streets. She had a natural gift for entertainment and gradually found work with street performance groups, including one called the Jones Family Band. She persuaded a show manager to let her audition for the St Louis Chorus vaudeville show, and, at the age of 15, travelled with them to New York to perform at the Plantation Club. Already, only age 15, she had married her second husband, Willie Baker (her first marriage was age 13), and because success was now coming, she kept his name for the rest of her life. In New York, she also took part in Broadway revues ​Shuffle Along (​ 1921) and ​The Chocolate Dandies (​ 1924), mainly as part of the chorus line, but also as a soloist in her own right as her talents as a dancer were becoming more and more apparent. Her big break though was when she and the company sailed for Paris, where she opened in L​ a Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 2n​ d​ October 1925. She was 19. She was an instant hit, dancing apparently practically nude on stage. Her second show, ​Un Vent de Folie a​ t the Folies Bergère in 1927 caused an even greater sensation; her costume consisted of a short skirt made of artificial bananas, which became the symbol not only of her, but of the whole of 1920s Paris. She became part of the artistic scene of ​Les Années Folles, a​ friend of Ernest Hemingway and of Cocteau, who helped launch her into stardom. Josephine Baker was the first black woman to star in a film, the silent film L​ a Sirène des Tropiques (​ 1927) and in 1929 embarked on a European tour. In the late 1920s singing began to be a part of her career, ​J’ai deux amours b​ eing one of her first big hits. Her manager and lover at this time was Giuseppe Pepito Abatino, a Sicilian who passed himself off as a count. In 1934 she took the lead in Offenbach’s opera L​ a Créole ​at the Théâtre Marigny. A return to America in 1936 for the Broadway show Z​ iegfeld Follies w​ as not a success, she was now far too French for most American audiences, and

in 1937 she renounced her American citizenship to become a French national and married the French industrialist Jean Lion. When war broke out in 1939 Baker joined French military intelligence, and worked as an active and very effective member of the Resistance, using her cover as an entertainer travelling across France, surreptitiously gathering information at parties and passing it on to the government. After the war she was awarded the Croix de Guerre and made a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur. Baker returned to the Folies Bèrgere in 1949 and made a triumphant tour of America in 1951, during which she refused to sing for segregated audiences in Miami and which climaxed with a parade in front of 100,000 people in New York. The racism that Baker experienced in America shocked Baker after the freedom she had experienced in Paris (she was refused reservations in 36 New York hotels) and she lent her support to the Civil Rights movement in a big way, writing articles and making speeches. In 1951 the American government cancelled her work visa and she had to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was over a decade before she was allowed back into America. When Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, his widow asked Josephine Baker to take her husband’s place as leader of the movement, but after many days consideration she refused saying that her children were toon young to lose their mother. In 1953 Baker adopted 12 children from all over the world, creating an international family she called her ‘Rainbow Tribe’. These children lived in her château, the Château des Milandes in the Dordogne (now a luxury hotel) and she arranged tours so visitors could see how these children naturally formed a multiracial, multinational family. While there are uncomfortable aspects of charging visitors to watch young children play together, this project did do good work in showing an idealised world of racial and religious harmony. Josephine Baker’s final performance was on 8​th ​ April 1975 in Paris, celebrating her 50 years in showbusiness. The revue was financed by Princess Grace of Monaco and Jacqueline Kennedy, and had Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minelli as her supporting artists. Four days later she was dead, having suffered a cerebral haemorrhage.

Vincert Scotto write 60 operettas and over 4000 songs and the music for around 200 films, despite not being able to read music and so always being reliant on other people to transcribe his music for him. He was born in Marseilles, the son of Neapolitan immigrants, and moved to Paris in 1895 age 21. He began his career as a song-writer: his songs were sung by Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf as well as Josephine Baker. Scotto moved back to Marseilles in 1931 and began to write operettas, his first success being ​Au Pays du Soleil ​(1932). He moved on to more serious operas, ​Violettes Impériales (​ 1948) being his most successful. Writing the music for around 200 films occupied the final decade of his life. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur in recognition of his achievements.

J’ai deux amours ​was the first big hit of Géo Koger. He continued to collaborate with Vincent Scotto, writing the lyrics for Scotto’s music for the films M​ arinella ​(1936) and popular songs such as ​Ô Corse, L’Île d’Amour​.

Song 26- Domino ​from S​ ept Quatrains de Raymond Radiguet – Georges Auric and Raymond Radiguet Auric’s S​ ept Quatrains de Raymond Radiguet​ ​are dedicated to Lucien Daudet, a writer, though he was always overshadowed by his more famous father Alphonse, and a painter, though he was always overshadowed by his teacher James Whistler. The alternative title of the set is ​Alphabet; t​ he seven

songs beginning with 7 seemingly random letters of the alphabet: A, B, D, F, M, H, E.

Song 27 - Locutions f​ rom ​Six Poésies de Jean Cocteau – Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) and Jean Cocteau Honegger’s S​ ix Poésies de Jean Cocteau ​ ​were written in Paris in May 1920 and dedicated to the soprano Rose Féart (1878-1954), whose roles (most notably at the Paris Opera) included Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde), Gutrune (Götterdämmerung), Brünhilde (Die Walküre), Leonora (Il Trovatore) and Mélisande (Pélleas et Mélisande).

Arthur Honegger, the only non-French member of ​Les Six ​was born to Swiss parents in Le Havre. He studied with Widor and d’Indy at the Paris Conservatoire. He married a fellow student, the pianist Andrée Vaurabourg on the condition that they live in separate apartments so that he could have peace to compose. He had a relationship (and a son) with the singer Claire Croiza, who gave the first performance of the S​ ix Poésies de Jean Cocteau.​ H​ onegger’s works written between the wars include 9 ballets, the music for the film ​Napoléon (​ 1927), ​Pacific 231 (​ 1923) based on the sound of a steam train, and a ‘dramatic oratorio’ J​ eanne d’Arc au Bûcher (​ 1935) and the ‘dramatic psalm’ ​Le Roi David ​(1921). He joined the Resistance during the Occupation and continued to teach at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. After the war he wrote 4 more symphonies. Generally, his compositional style is more serious than that of the other members of L​ es Six.

Song 28 - Le souvenir ​from Q​ uatre Mélodies – Henri Sauguet (1901-1989) and Anon (based on Friedrich von Schiller, 1759-1805) Le Souvenir ​was written in 1927 and dedicated to “mon ami Christian Hardouin”. It is a free translation of Schiller’s ​Amalia, ​which was set by Schubert.

Henri Sauguet was born in Bordeaux. In his late teens and early twenties he befriended Joseph Canteloube and travelled with him collecting folksongs (C​ hants d’Auvergne). ​ He began a correspondence with Milhaud and sent him some of his music; Milhaud was impressed and encouraged Sauguet to move to Paris which he did in 1921, becoming a student of Koechlin. He came into contact with Erik Satie, who introduced Sauguet to Diaghilev. This led to the composition of his first ballet ​Les Roses ​(1924). Another ballet L​ a Chatte (​ 1927) premiered in Monte Carlo, choreographed by Balanchine. This tells the story of a young man who falls in love with a cat, who is changed into human form through the intervention of Aphrodite. In all Sauguet wrote 20 ballets. His many songs, including 30 cycles, cover his entire career, beginning in 1921 (age 20) and continuing till 1987. His post war works include 4 symphonies. Sauguet had a long-term relationship with the set designer Jacques Dupont. They were buried in the same grave in the Montmartre cemetery, near that of Berlioz. Sauguet’s autobiography, M​ usique, ma vie ​was published posthumously in 1990.

Song 29 - La dernière valse f​ rom ​Une Revue – Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) and Maurice Donnay (1859-1945) and Henri Duvernois (1875-1937)

Une Revue (​ 1924) was a 1-act entertainment premiered on 28t​ h ​ October 1924.

Reynaldo Hahn was born in Caracas to a Venezuelan Catholic mother and a German Jewish father (his name therefore should be pronounced with the aspirate ‘h’, not in the French manner ‘Ahn). He was the youngest of twelve children. The family moved to Paris when he was aged three. He was a child prodigy who entered the Paris Conservatoire age 10 and studied composition with Gounod. Alfred Cortot and Ravel were among his fellow students in the piano class. He was later to become a conductor (Maggie Teyte described him as the greatest of all Mozartians) conducting at the Salzburg Festival when it was revived after the First World War. In the inter-war years he was general manager of Cannes opera house and leading critic for ​Le Figaro. H​ e was forced to leave Paris during the Nazi occupation, returning in 1945 to become the director of the Paris Opera.

Maurice Donnay was a Parisian, the son of a railway engineer. He began his writing career providing material for the cabaret L​ e Chat Noir, ​for which he wrote P​ hryne (​ 1891), a series of short Greek scenes. His first full length play was L​ ysistrata (​ 1892), a four-act comedy produced at the Grand Théâtre, and his most successful was ​Amants ​(1895). Donnay was elected to the Académie Française in 1907.

Henri Duvernois wrote novels and short stories depicting everyday life in Paris. They are melancholy, ironic, and typically Parisian, and include C​ rapotte (​ 1908), ​Faubourg Montmartre ​(1914), ​Edgar (​ 1919) and M​ axime ​(1927). He also wrote a series of one-act plays.

Nigel Foster