Gilles Cachemaille: The complete "Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire FP. 58" (Poulenc)

Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (FP. 58):
I. L'anguille 00:00
II. Carte postale 01:14
III. Avant le cinéma 02:28
IV. 1904 03:21

Poulenc, Francis (1899-1963) -composer
Gilles Cachemaille - bass-baritone
Pascal Rogé -piano

Playlist "The art of French song: Faure, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Satie...": http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdM8VSWYvcWGecjk_VR0LNMYlVs05efWQ

Many of Poulenc's Apollinaire settings were found by the composer in the volume Il y a (1925), a collection of Apollinaire's youthful and unpublished verse, as well as a reprinting of poems that had been written for reviews and ephemeral publications. This kind of Apollinaire—youthful, casual, transparent—was a treasure trove for Poulenc, who found in Il y a the Trois poèmes de Louise Lalanne (two poems of which are by Marie Laurencin) at the same time as working on these four songs (the first of which is dedicated to Laurencin).
L'anguille is an implacable valse-musette that 'evokes the atmosphere of a shady hotel' (JdmM). Apollinaire's 'Parigot' (Parisian slang) includes animal nicknames for well-known members of the underworld (cf the New Yorker Damon Runyon) and where a Black Maria is a 'salad basket' (police van). Bernac counsels singers to avoid vulgarity in performing songs where Poulenc 'adopts a plebeian accent', but he affirms that the composer understood, better than most, 'the dark poetry of a certain sordid Parisian atmosphere'.
Carte postale is an acrostic (the first letter of each line spelling the beloved's name—LINDA) that appears in Il y a without a heading; Poulenc gives it the title Carte postale because the young Apollinaire had communicated his affection for the sister of his friend, Fernand Molina da Silva, in a series of postcards. This song with its gentle but imperturbable pianism, indolent but not slow, put the composer in mind of the painting of Misia Sert at the piano by Pierre Bonnard. Poulenc dedicated the music to another more modern Linda, Mrs Cole Porter.
The poem for Avant le cinéma dates from 1917. The poet was a greedy enthusiast for the new 'ciné'. Apollinaire ruthlessly parodies the need of 'old professors from the provinces' to use fancy terminology to define (and thus make more intellectually acceptable) their fascinating new hobby. (Poulenc's teacher, Charles Koechlin, was an unashamed cinema addict.) The triplets of much of the song's accompaniment unwind like a spool in an old cinema projector. Composing the music fourteen years after the poem was written, Poulenc allows himself a postlude that evokes the closing theme of Laurel and Hardy, an ironic after-comment on 'good taste'.
The original title for the poem Poulenc set as 1904 was Carnaval. Writing in 1914, Apollinaire evokes a sojourn—a decade earlier—in Strasbourg where he had been sent on a journalistic mission just before Lent. The speed of the song, one of Poulenc's whirlwinds, testifies to the poet's riotous time in Alsace where he enjoyed carnival-time better than in Rome, Nice or Cologne. The name Torlogne (Torlonia) is that of a Rumanian family known at the time for their fabulous wealth. Apollinaire has his fill of the food and alcohol, the famous delicacies of Strasbourg, but the music stops suddenly, and very lyrically, in its tracks (Très lent, amoroso) when he realizes that the girl of 1914 who is missing in this historic scenario would have made that delightful experience of 1904 complete. The closing bars of four staccato quavers capture the Gallic sigh, or shrug, to perfection.
Source: http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA68021/4

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