Composers › Francis Poulenc › Programme note
Le Bestiaire
Gerald Larner wrote 2 versions of differing length — choose one below.
Le Dromadaire
La Chèvre du Thibet
La Sauterelle
Le Dauphin
L’Ecrivisse
La Carpe
‘If my tomb were to bear the words, “Here lies Francis Poulenc, composer of Apollinaire and Éluard,” it seems to me that it would be my greatest claim to glory.’ Poulenc is remembered for much more than that, of course, but there can be little doubt that Apollinaire and Éluard inspired the greatest of his songs which, in turn, add up to his greatest achievement. The two poets were not, however, equally accessible to him. Although he got to know both of them towards the end of the First World War, he had been writing songs for 16 years before he discovered the secret of matching Éluard’s prosody in music. With Apollinaire, on the other hand, he hit it off immediately.
Although Apollinaire died only six months after Poulenc first met him, the composer always remembered the sound of the poet’s voice. “I think that is an essential point for a composer who doesn’t want to betray a poet,” said Poulenc. “The Apollinaire sound, like his work, was both melancholy and joyous at the same time.” So Poulenc was delighted when, having published six tiny songs based on poems from Le Bestiaire – the first of his 34 Apollinaire settings – he received out of the blue a letter addressed to “Mon petit garçon” from Marie Laurencin, a one-time lover of Apollinaire, who told him, “You have no idea how well you have conveyed both the nostalgia and the singsong quality of those admirable quatrains. And what I find so moving is that you would think you were hearing the voice of Guillaume Apollinaire himself reciting these very lines.”
Apollinaire’s Le Bestiaire, ou Cortège d’Orphée – a series of short poems depicting a procession of animals following Orpheus with his lute – was first published in 1911. When it was reprinted in 1918 with illustrations by Raoul Dufy a copy was sent to Poulenc who, though engaged in military service at Pont-sur-Seine at the time, immediately got to work and set a selection of 12 of them. On the advice of Georges Auric, he discarded half of them and, on learning that Louis Durey had already set the whole series, dedicated them to his older colleague as a kind of apology. First performed (in a version for voice and chamber ensemble) in June 1919 at a matinée poétique given in Apollinaire’s memory, the six songs of Le Bestiaire are delightful studies in characterisation. The heavy-footed Dromadaire and the languorous Carpe – the latter written in a restaurant car between Longueville and Paris, the composer tells us – are the most successful. They all, however, confirm the validity of Poulenc’s feeling that he had “a bond, sure and mysterious, with the poetry of Apollinaire” and require little commentary except perhaps in the case of L’Écrivisse where the witty backwards version (“à reculons”) of the opening motif is not immediately obvious to the ear.
Of the six discarded Bestiare settings, incidentally, La Puce was published in a revised version in a book devoted to Dufy in 1960 and Le Serpent and La Colombe turned up in an auction sale in Paris in 1992. La Tortue, La Mouche and Le Boeuf are still missing.
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Bestiaire/longer”
Le Dromadaire
La Chèvre du Thibet
La Sauterelle
Le Dauphin
L’Ecrivisse
La Carpe
Although Guillaume Apollinaire died only six months after Poulenc first met him in 1918, the composer always remembered the sound of the poet’s voice. “I think that is an essential point for a composer who doesn’t want to betray a poet,” said Poulenc. “The Apollinaire sound, like his work, was both melancholy and joyous at the same time.” So Poulenc was delighted when, having published six tiny songs based on poems from Le Bestiaire - the first of his 33 Apollinaire settings - he received out of the blue a letter addressed to “Mon petit garçon” from Marie Laurencin, who told him, “You have no idea how well you have conveyed both the nostalgia and the singsong quality of those admirable quatrains. And what I find so moving is that you would think you were hearing the voice of Guillaume Apollinare himself reciting these very lines.”
Apollinaire’s Le Bestiaire, ou Cortège d’Orphée - a series of twelve quatrains depicting a procession of animals following Orpheus with his lute - was first published in 1911 with illustrations by Raoul Dufy. When it was reprinted in 1918 a copy was sent to Poulenc who, though engaged in military service at Pont-sur-Seine at the time, immediately set to work and set all twelve of them. On the advice of Georges Auric, he discarded half of them and, on learning that Louis Durey had already set the whole series, dedicated them to his older colleague as a kind of apology. Written just after the Mouvements perpétuels, they are as distinctive of the sound of the composer as they are of the voice of the poet.
Le Dromadaire
Avec ses quatre dromadaires
Don Pedro d’Alfaroubeira
Courut le monde et l’admira.
Il fit ce que je voudrais faire
Si j’avais quatre dromadaires.
The Dromedary
With four dromedaries
Don Pedro d’Alfaroubeira
Travelled the world and admired it.
He did what I would want to do
If I had four dromedaries.
La Chèvre du Thibet
Les poils de cette chèvre et même
Ceux d’or pour qui prit tant de peine
Jason ne valent rien au prix
Des cheveux dont je suis épris.
The Tibetan Goat
The coat of this goat and even
The golden fleece which meant so much to
Jason are worthless in comparison
With the hair I am in love with.
La Sauterelle
Voici la fine sauterelle
La nourriture de Saint Jean.
Puissent mes vers étre comme elle
Le régal des meilleures gens.
The Grasshopper
Here is the delicious grasshopper
The food of Saint John.
May my verses be like that
A treat for the best people.
Le Dauphin
Dauphin vous jouez dans la mer
Mais le flot est toujours amer.
Parfois ma joie éclate-t-elle
La vie est encore cruelle.
The Dolphin
Dolphin you play in the sea
But the waves are always salty.
Sometimes my joy breaks out
But life is still cruel.
L’Ecrivisse
Incertitude, ô mes délices!
Vous et moi nous nous en allons
Comme s’en vont les écrivisses
A reculons, à reculons.
The Crayfish
Uncertainty, oh how delightful!
You and I we go along
Like crayfish go along
Backwards, backwards.
La Carpe
Dans vos viviers, dans vos étangs,
Carpes, que vous vivez longtemps!
Est-ce que la mort vous oublie,
Poissons de la mélancolie?
The Carp
In your ponds, in your pools,
Carp, how long you live!
Has death forgotten you,
Melancholy fish?
From Gerald Larner’s files: “Bestiaire”