“La voix humaine”

Pascal Rophé – Anna Caterina Antonacci (Paris, 2013)

De Fransman Francis Poulenc (1899 – 1963) ontving de eerste lessen van zijn moeder, een amateurpianiste. Zijn vader was een vermogend industrieel. Als tiener ontving hij les van de beroemde Spaanse pianist Ricardo Viñes (deze voerde premières uit van o.a. Ravel, Debussy, Satie, De Falla e.a.). Behalve dat Poulenc omging met musici sloot hij vriendschap met dichters en schrijvers. Poulenc was streng katholiek en stak niet onder stoelen of banken dat hij homoseksueel was.

Poulenc volgde geen gedegen studie compositie, zodat we kunnen spreken van een autodidact. Rond zijn 18^e kwam hij in het openbaar met enkele pianowerken en liederen. Hij sloot zich aan bij de componistengroep Groupe des Six, een zestal jonge Franse componisten die korte metten wilde maken met de romantiek, vooral die van Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883).

Toen hij 25 jaar was ging zijn ballet Les Biches in première. Hij sloot vriendschap met de baritonzanger Bernac waarvoor hij tientallen Liederen schreef en concerten met hem gaf.

Bekend werden zijn Concert voor klavecimbel (1927), Concert voor 2 piano’s (1932), Concert voor orgel (1938), Pianoconcert (1949), Stabat Mater (1951), Gloria (1959)

In 1958 verscheen La voix humaine (De menselijke stem) op tekst van Jean Cocteau. Er treedt slecht één persoon op in de opera, een hopeloze en verdrietige vrouw (sopraan). Deze zingt en spreekt een monoloog. De vrouw doet wanhopige pogingen om haar geliefde voor zich terug te winnen door middel van een telefoongesprek. Het verloop van het telefoongesprek verloopt soms moeizaam, oorzaken hiervan zijn verkeerde verbindingen, nummers die niet kloppen, en plotseling onderbroken gesprekken. Als de man ophangt ervaart de vrouw dit als een executie.

Instrumentation

La voix humaine is scored for full symphony orchestra with reduced dimensions, so that the sung text is easily understandable.The entire orchestra rarely plays at once; such moments occur only when the soprano does not sing, or when her voice lyrically rises above the orchestra Poulenc writes coloristically, using different combinations of instruments to achieve certain effects. The instrumentation listed in Poulenc’s score is as follows:

• 2 flutes
• 1 oboe
• 1 English horn
• 2 clarinets in B-flat
• 1 bass clarinet
• 2 bassoons
• 2 horns
• 2 trumpets in C
• 1 trombone
• 1 tuba
• 1 percussion: timpani, cymbals, tambourine, xylophone
• 1 harp
• strings (violins 1 and 2, viola, cello, contrabass)

Musical structure

Treatment of the voice

Example 1: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), 3 after no. 24

Poulenc’s writing for the voice is recitative-like in style, representing the natural inflections of speech and, in the case of this particular drama, imitating a phone conversation through its frequent pauses and silences. Poulenc rejects his previous lyricism, opting for a fragmentary, declamatory approach to the voice.Common characteristics of Poulenc’s vocal lines include multiple repeated notes, few intervals greater than a fifth, much step-wise motion and motion by a third, and rhythm and accents designed to reflect actual speech patterns, especially “the pauses and hesitations of a phone conversation.” Keith W. Daniel notes that out of the 780 measures of music in Poulenc’s work, 186 are for solo voice without orchestral accompaniment, adding to the impression of a real telephone conversation. Many of the techniques described above are present in Example 1.

Example 2: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), 3 before no. 63

Poulenc strays from the recitative in highly dramatic passages, including when Elle sings of her suicide attempt of the previous night. This section is more lyrical and tonal, as can be seen in Example 2. Here, the vocal line more resembles an aria, especially as it builds toward its high point in the nine-eight measure, and the orchestra accompanies the voice in a waltz. The harmony, meanwhile, is a dominant prolongation in C (minor), and indeed, the orchestra resolves to C (major) in the following measure. Poulenc’s vocal writing shows a strong dedication to maintaining the dramatic effect of Cocteau’s text. The recitative-like passages clearly deliver the libretto, while the aria-like passages illustrate the soprano’s passion and anguish.

Treatment of the orchestra[edit]

Example 3: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), no. 1 (“Exasperated waiting” motif)

Poulenc uses the orchestra to connect the soprano’s fragmented vocal lines, unifying the piece as a whole. Unlike his treatment of the soprano voice, Poulenc gives the orchestra many lyrical motifs, writing in the preface his score, “L’œuvre entière doit baigner dans la plus grande sensualité orchestrale” (“The entire work must bathe in the largest orchestral sensuality”). He unifies the opera through these motifs, of which Denis Waleckx identifies fourteen.These motifs relate to Elle’s state of mind, such as those representing her “exasperated waiting,” and to situations out of her control, such as her “happy memory.”The first of these motifs is shown in Example 3.

Example 4: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), no. 41 (“Endurance” motif)

Daniel, however, suggests that only nine of Waleckx’s examples are true motifs, while the remaining one- or two-bar phrases employ a cellular technique in which a short phrase is presented, then repeated once or twice. What Waleckx cites as the “Endurance” motif (see Example 4), Daniel uses to illustrate Poulenc’s cellular technique. Despite their different interpretations, both authors agree that the primary function of the orchestra is to unify the opera into a cohesive work. As Daniel explains, “If La voix humaine succeeds as a drama, it is because of the vocal writing; but if it succeeds as a piece of music, as an opera, it is because of the orchestra.”^[

Example 5: Poulenc, La voix humaine (1959), no. 5

Other functions of the orchestra include the representation of Elle’s agitation while trying to reach her lover and the jazz she hears on her lover’s side of the phone conversation. Musicologist and professor Michal Grover-Friedlander also suggests that the orchestral music can symbolize the lover’s side of the phone conversation. Perhaps the most important orchestral function other than unifying the overall work is the portrayal of the telephone ringing through repeated sixteenth notes on the xylophone, shown in Example 5. Although the pitch and the duration of the ringing changes throughout the opera, the timbre of the xylophone is only ever used to represent the “voice” of the telephone, making it easily identifiable. The phone cutting off and re-ringing divides the opera into natural sections and creates a comprehensible structure through which the audience understands the drama.The orchestra is therefore essential to unifying and organizing the opera.

Use of tonality

La voix humaine stands out from Poulenc’s previous works because it is marked by a certain tonal ambiguity. Poulenc achieves this sensation through the avoidance of traditional harmonic functions and the preponderance of unresolved dissonances, diminished structures, and progressions of chromatically-related chords.^[Although some passages—most often those in which the voice becomes more lyrical—have a clear tonal center, the tonally ambiguous sections are much more frequent in Poulenc’s score. Grover-Friedlander suggests that the music is motivically, rather than tonally, driven. Yet in these motives, she identifies a number of tonal references, including “half steps or leading notes, sevenths, or appoggiaturas, which raise expectations for tonal functioning and tonal resolutions. Poulenc’s motivic, cell-like aesthetics does not undermine a sense of totality, but treats it as constantly deferred, or in motion.” Poulenc thereby uses tonal techniques in a more modern, tonally ambiguous harmonic language. ~ Source Wiki

11 Ottobre 1963: muore il poeta, drammaturgo, sceneggiatore, scrittore, regista, disegnatore JEAN COCTEAU.

FRANCIS POULENC “La voix humaine” opera in 1 atto composta nel 1958 su un testo di JEAN COCTEAU…capolavoro del teatro del ‘900
Un solo personaggio e un lungo monologo…una donna è stata lasciata dal suo compagno…disperatamente cerca di riconquistarlo al telefono…l’opera è tutta contenuta in una lunghissima telefonata…solitudine, disperazione, un flusso ininterrotto di pensieri, emozioni, stati d’animo…
Grande l’interpretazione della nostra ANNA CATERINA ANTONACCI a Parigi 2013 meravigliosa cantante e attrice…intensa, passionale, vibrante, un fraseggio da brividi…
una interpretazione forte.

11 oktober 1963: de dichter, toneelschrijver, schrijver, schrijver, directeur, ontwerper Jean Cocteau sterft.

Francis Poulenc “la voix humaine” de menselijke stem /werkt in 1 act, gecomponeerd in 1958 op een tekst van Jean Cocteau… Meesterwerk van het theater van ‘ 900
Eén karakter en een lange monoloog… een vrouw werd achtergelaten door haar partner… wanhopig aan de telefoon te bellen… het werk zit allemaal in een lang gesprek… eenzaamheid, wanhoop, een ononderbroken stroom van gedachten , !!! emoties, staat van geest…
Geweldig de interpretatie van onze Anna Caterina Antonacci in Parijs 2013 prachtige zangeres en actrice… Heftig, gepassioneerd, levendig, een griezelige verwoording…
Een sterke interpretatie

many people know of the violin sonatas written by franck, debussy, and ravel but how many know of the sonatas written by faure, lekeu and poulenc