Je nommerai ton front (1939)

Miroirs brûlants

Tu vois le feu du soir (1938)

Je nommerai ton front (1939)

Though obviously outnumbered in this programme by Apollinaire settings, the two Éluard songs of Miroirs brûlants include one of the longest and most beautiful of all Poulenc’s mélodies. Like Apollinaire’s Dans le jardin d’Anna, Éluard’s Tu vois le feu du soir is an accumulation of images which are set in one unchanging tempo. In this case, however, the tempo is “calm and unreal” and sustained by a rhythm of quavers which persist from beginning to end in the piano part while the voice carries a freely inflecting, expressively modulating melodic line often doubled and sometimes even counterpointed by the pianist. A rapturous love song – written in view of a landscape in the Morvan corresponding in the composer’s mind with that of the poem – it is paired with a song of hate. Having had to leave Anost sooner than he had anticipated, Poulenc “lost the thread” of his work on Je nommerai ton front and, he believed, failed to pick it up again when he got home to Noizay. As a contrast to Tu vois le feu du soir, however, it is as effective as it is violent.