ABSTRACT
In 1943, Louise Talma was invited to the MacDowell Colony for the first of many extended stays there. Away from the distractions of teaching, New York City, and Boulanger, she renewed her commitment to composition and enjoyed a remarkably productive summer. While Talma sometimes engaged in text-painting here, she more often signaled the increased importance of a word or phrase by repeating elements, by changing the syntax of the music, or by creating new levels of it. Terre de France was her farewell to the pre-war world of the Conservatoire Americain and everything it represented for her personally and professionally. The five songs of the cycle, each with a French text, and this stand-alone setting of a text by Elma Dean encapsulated Talma's reaction to the Second World War as well as her own psychological process of bidding farewell to the France of her youth and her experiences there.
