ABSTRACT
This chapter explains about the conversation of Francis Poulenc and Claude Rostand. Poulenc's writings and interviews give little idea of his political opinions. He is not an ideologue and refuses to pronounce on such questions. On several occasions he posits an analogy between artistic and political ideas, with the Left representing for him, on the artistic front, an openness to new things, and the Right a certain conservatism. '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'. an astonishingly rich source of information about the man and the composer, and at the same time a chronicle of his artistic milieu.
