Francis Poulenc: Articles and Interviews: Notes from the Heart

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Contents: Preface to the translation
Translators Note
Introduction
Part I Articles: Le Coq and Le Coq Parisien
On Igor Stravinsky's Mavra
On Igor Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms
In praise of banality
Long live Stravinsky!
The composer and the sorcerer
Francis Poulenc on his ballets
For the harpsichord, Wanda Landowska has completed in New York her life's work'
Pages from America (diary extracts)
Erik Satie's piano music
How I composed Les Dialogues des Carmelites
Opera in the cinema era. Part II Critical Articles and Reviews: On Richard Strauss's Elektra
On Oberon
The Paris Opera ought to put on Fidelio
The heart of Maurice Ravel. Part III Contributions to Works by Others: The lessons of Claude Debussy
Preface to Gabriel Laplane, Albeniz: sa vie, son /uvre
Notes on Ravel. Part IV Response to a Survey: Is there a 'Messiaen affair'? Part V Lectures: My teachers and my friends
My songs and their poets. Part VI Interviews: Interview with Andre Laphin
Interview with Lucien Chevallier
Interview with Jose Bruyr
Interview with Nino Franck
Interview with A.P.
Interview with Jeannie Chaveau
Interview with Claude Chamfray
Interview with Fernando Lopes-Graca
Interview with Paul Guth
Pulenc: an act of faith, Daniel Bernet
Interview with Henri Hell
Interview with Martine Cadieu
Interview: 'A Denizen of Noizay'
Interview with Denise Bourdet. Part VII Interviews with Claude Rostand: Preface to interviews
Interviews 1- 18. Index.

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’He plays the piano well,’ wrote the society hostess Mme de Saint-Marceaux in her diary on 18 March 1927. ’His compositions are not devoid of talent but he’s not a genius, and I’m afraid he thinks he is.’ Intelligent though the lady was, she got this one spectacularly wrong. Poulenc has in fact outpaced his colleagues in Les Six by many a mile, as singers and instrumentalists all over the world will attest, and while he would never have accepted the title of ’genius’, preferring ’artisan’, a genius is increasingly what he appears to have been. Part of the answer lay in always being his own man, and this independence of spirit shows through in his writings and interviews just as brightly as in his music, whether it’s boasting that he’d be happy never to hear The Mastersingers ever again, pointing out that what critics condemn as the ’formlessness’ of French music is one of its delights, voicing his outrage at attempts to ’finish’ the Unfinished Symphony, writing ’in praise of banality’ - or remembering the affair of Debussy’s hat. And in every case, his intelligence, humour and generosity of spirit help explain why he was so widely and deeply loved. This volume comprises selected articles from Francis Poulenc: J’écris ce qui me chante (Fayard, 2011) edited by Nicholas Southon. Many of these articles and interviews have not been available in English before and Roger Nichols's translation, capturing the very essence of Poulenc’s lively writing style, makes more widely accessible this significant contribution to Poulenc scholarship.

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