- Date: 1960
- Composer: Francis Poulenc
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
These seven songs, settings of nonsensical, melancholy, and mischievous verses for children by Maurice Carême, were initially written for Denise Duval, a celebrated lead performer in Poulenc's operas, to sing to her son.In "Le sommeil" (Sleep), a parent attempts to comfort a child ("...come back, sleep...the Great Bear has buried the sun and rekindled his bees") who has been crying since noon, and is perspiring, perhaps from illness. The tempo is a soothing "très calme" with a steady underlying beat; syncopations in the piano and some chromatic movement in the voice hint at the child's restiveness.
"Quelle Aventure!" (What Goings-On!) delivers a charmingly absurd image: a flea in a carriage is pulling along an elephant who is absentmindedly sucking up a pot of jam. The flea is suddenly carried away by the wind as the elephant breaks away and runs through walls. The child is tickled by the "aventure," and this is depicted by tripping chromatics and humorously dissonant sevenths.
In "La Reine de coeur" (The Queen of Hearts), played "très calme at languide," the Queen waves "a flower of the almond tree" at young dead lovers in a secret place where "there are no more doors, no rooms nor towers." Each phrase of the pure minor (Aeolian) mode melody floats and then gently ascends, underscored by beautiful modal harmonies.
"Ba, Be, Bi, Bo, Bu..." in E flat minor is played "Très gai, follement vite" (very lighthearted, wildly fast), and has a kind of childish scary thrill about it. Puss-in-Boots uninhibitedly goes around "playing, dancing, singing" and is told like a child "you must learn to read, to count, to write"; nevertheless, he "bursts out laughing."
The heavenly harpists in "Les anges musiciens" (The Angel Musicians) are playing Mozart "in drops of blue joy" on a school holiday, progressing from B flat major (the key of Mozart's last piano concerto which incorporates an actual children's tune) to an undulating D major.
"Le Carafon" (The Baby Carafe) is a nonsense song that trades on the punning near homophony of the words "carafe" and "girafe" (giraffe): an adult carafe wants to have a baby carafe just like "madame la Girafe" has a baby giraffe at the zoo. The music modulates all over the place with the same delight as a child's sense of humor.
The last song, "Lune d'Avril" (April Moon), played "Très lent et irréal" (very slow and unreal), is a retrospective epilogue. The text contains lovely surrealistic dream imagery: "the peach tree with the saffron heart, the fish who laughs at the sleet, the bird who...gently awakens the dead...the land where there is joy...sunny with primroses, all the guns have been destroyed." This last line is set to a descending vocal line over a rich minor ninth chord voiced in strong yet somehow plaintive octaves, fifths, and fourths. The song then ends with the chant-like "Lune, belle lune, lune d'avril, Lune" (Moon, beautiful moon, April moon, Moon). ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été; Ravel: Shéhérazade | 1999 |
| Berlioz: Les Nuits d'été; Ravel: Shéhérazade, etc. | 1988 |
| Ravel: Shéhérazade; Berlioz: Nuits d'été | 2006 |
| Youkali | 2007 |
