Poulenc by Roger Nichols

Author:Roger Nichols
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300226508
Publisher: Yale University Press

During the twelve months between July 1946 and that of 1947 Poulenc the performer and organizer largely took over from Poulenc the composer. No doubt some part in this was played by post-war freedom and easing of travel restrictions and the psychological relief these brought, on the lines of Pelléas’s ‘Ah! je respire enfin’ as he emerges from the castle dungeons. But some part may well have been due to a need to take stock within the general atmosphere of unease. A third reason may also have been that traditionally Paris had responded to the public presence of composers: working away in monk-like seclusion was all very well but, as Cocteau’s example demonstrated, the capital’s fickle public needed constant prodding, and long periods of invisibility too easily led to oblivion.

The outstanding event of that autumn, though, involved Poulenc neither as pianist nor as organizer. On 13 September he became a father. A recently published letter (see Appendix) tells us a New Year party was the occasion responsible. He had known the baby girl’s mother, Frédérique or Freddy, since the 1920s when she used to spend her holidays at the château de Perreux in the Touraine. She was a cousin of Richard Chanlaire’s sister-in-law Suzette. Poulenc had dedicated two songs to her, ‘Une ruine coquille vide’ from Tel jour telle nuit and ‘Dans l’herbe’ from Fiançailles pour rire. However, the paternity of Marie-Ange was kept a close secret and even she herself believed that Poulenc (‘Payen’, as she called him) was her godfather, learning the truth only after the composer’s death in 1963. The reasons behind this secrecy can only be guessed at. By 1946 Poulenc was generally known to be homosexual, so news of his paternity could possibly have given rise to ribald comment of some kind; and of course, in the social circles in which he moved, begetting a child out of wedlock might still cause disapproval. Beyond this, though, his treatment of his daughter could not be faulted for its kindness and loving attention, and he made sure that after his death she would be well provided for.

To set against this birth came two deaths in November. On the 14th Manuel de Falla passed away peacefully a few days before his seventieth birthday, in Argentina where he had gone at the outbreak of war. Poulenc had always admired his religious fervour, apparently untainted by the doubts that assailed himself. The second death, of Éluard’s wife Nusch from a cerebral haemorrhage on 28 November, was more shocking since she was only just forty. A woman of stunning beauty, painted by Picasso and Magritte and photographed by Man Ray and Dora Maar, her death had a powerful impact on the whole surrealist world. The following October Poulenc dedicated his song . . . mais mourir to her memory.

On the musical front, the December of 1946 saw both a birth and a death-plus-rebirth. Negotiations with Brussels for a first performance of Figure humaine had been going on for some time, and far from smoothly.

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