Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Melodies Of Francis Poulenc: A Selective Musico-Literary Study, Elizabeth Nolan

Masters

This dissertation examines the melodies, or art songs, of the twentieth-century French composer Francis Poulenc in relation to the artistic milieu of his time. The study focuses on prosody and the key role of wordsetting in Poulenc’s compositional technique, with particular reference to the composer’s settings of contemporary poets. The dissertation’s central section comprises a musico-literary analysis of four representative song cycles by Poulenc, set to verses by poets with whom he experienced a particular creative affinity: Guillaume Appollinaire, Max Jacob, Louise de Vilmorin and Paul Eluard. The choice of works has not been determined according to chronological criteriae: instead …