Hyperion Records

If the Apollinaire songs are of earth and water (the feel of the Paris pavement, the sound of the Seine), the Paul Éluard songs are made of fire and air. Indeed it must be admitted that the greatest Apollinaire settings were written only after Poulenc had passed through the refining fire of contact with Éluard’s poetry. 1936 was a pivotal year: one of Poulenc’s friends, the composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud, was killed in a macabre accident; Poulenc was reconverted to catholicism as a result of a mystical experience at the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour; his song duo with the baritone Pierre Bernac was firmly established; and Éluard became a cherished collaborator in his vocal music. Out of these experiences a more serious and dedicated creator emerged, and in Bernac he had found a serious and dedicated interpreter to give voice to this new idealistic lyricism.

From this time, the cycle Tel jour telle nuit is one of Poulenc’s greatest achievements. Undeterred by superficial difficulties, the composer goes to the heart of Éluard’s texts. The poet’s own experiences (journeys, encounters, friendships, dreams, and above all his love for his wife Nusch) have gone into the making of the poems. Poulenc’s musical interpretation helps to unlock a door: behind it Éluard, the seemingly formidable intellectual, is revealed for what he really was—a poet of the people who sang unstintingly of love, the beauties of nature and the brotherhood of man. The last mélodie in this cycle, Nous avons fait la nuit, is one of the greatest love songs in French music; the poem is but one man’s explication of a relationship, yet, illuminated by Poulenc’s music, it takes on a universal significance and shows a deep understanding of the nature of love itself, and the means of its constant renewal. It is no surprise that the song’s postlude, which is the summing up of the cycle, has a power that recalls the end of a less optimistic but similarly heartfelt cycle, Schumann’s Dichterliebe.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1985