ABSTRACT
From 1928, Andre Jolivet maintained a chronological catalogue of his works in which he listed each composition with dates of performances, recordings and publication. The Poemes pour l'enfant show, as Jean-Claire Vancon has also observed, how Jolivet drew on the events of his personal life as a source of inspiration. The text authored by Jolivet was written for Épithalame, a work for twelve unaccompanied solo voices completed in 1953 for the twentieth anniversary of his marriage to Hilda, and first performed at the Venice Biennale on 16 September 1956. Some of the writers whose texts Jolivet set to music were his contemporaries. The survival of various working documents and correspondence in the composer's archives sheds valuable light on the nature of the artistic collaborations that took place at the time Jolivet was composing on these texts. Henri Gheon and Jolivet first came together in 1941 when they worked on the same project.
