Two songs from Quatre chansons pour enfants (1934)

Nous voulons une petite soeur

Le petit garçon trop bien portant

For all the 1930s modernity of the words attributed to “Jaboune” - the nom de plume of Jean Nohain, son of the Franc Nohain who wrote the play on which Ravel based his L’Heure espagnole - Poulenc’s Chansons pour enfants go back in most musical respects to the epoch of Offenbach and Lecocq. From the comic patter and tuneful refrains down to the farcical emphases on the wrong syllables and the nonsensical repetitions, these settings are essentially opéra-bouffe in technique, even if Poulenc’s melodic style derives from the popular song of his own childhood. Neither Offenbach nor Lecocq could have done it better.