Introduction

Francis Poulenc’s last major song-cycle is entitled Le Travail du peintre – The Artist’s Craft. It groups together settings of seven poems by Paul Eluard, dedicated to painters. It is an unusual composition, 'a work quite out of the ordinary', as Poulenc described it in a letter to Alice Esty, the American singer and patron of the arts who commissioned the cycle. This chapter looks at Poulenc's musical tastes as he himself presented them in his little-known radio programmes of 1947-49. The first is 'My ideal library', a list compiled by Poulenc himself of books he would have chosen or rejected for the perfect library. Included as well is the entire interchange between Poulenc and Benjamin Britten, in the chapter that chronicles their relationship and Poulenc's connection with Aldeburgh. In the study of Poulenc and Dufy, many of the works of both composer and artist are shown to have a surface charm and ease that masks a disciplined craftsmanship.