Moving ALS on Love: “Love with all your senses, but never love with all your soul”

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POULENC, FRANCIS. (1899-1963). French composer and pianist. Poulenc’s apparent simplicity belies his deep feelings expressed in expert technique. ALS. (“Francis”). 2pp. 4to. Indre-et-Loire, Monday. On his personal Le Grand Coteau stationery. To his friend Claude. In French with translation.

“Just a few words, my dear Claude, to prove to you that I am not forgetting you. Here I am settled in this Grand Coteau which has been transformed into a sanatorium. But it is good to be here…

I do not go out and I shut myself up in one room. I go from one piano to another, and above all, try not to think. Please do not be angry if I ask you also to respect my silence, but with the agreed upon conditions. I shall manage to appear calm provided I know that upon the slightest cause for alarm you will telephone me.

I never would have believed that there would be moments so difficult to endure.

Believe me, dear Claude, love with all your senses, but never love with all your soul. That is much too painful. Why is it that there exists only one person whom I love to such a degree?

I embrace you, for you are very dear to me…

P.S. I found some wonderful poems by Tristan l’Hermite to put into music. I hope I succeed in the effort…”

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Francis Poulenc

A member of the group of French composers known as Les Six, among Poulenc’s most famous works is Les Biches, a ballet written in 1923 for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The surrealistic and mildly erotic ballet, with choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky, catapulted Poulenc to success. “Perhaps more than any other French composer of his generation, Francis Poulenc…made a lasting contribution to the standing concert repertory, especially regarding songs, choral works, operas, and piano works. He was a prolific and revealing letter-writer whose professional life spanned two world wars and two continents,” (Notes, “Review of Francis Poulenc, ‘Echo and Source’: Selected Correspondence, 1915-1963,” Heyman).

Poulenc purchased his 16^th-centrury Loire Valley chateau, Le Grand Coteau, in 1927 to have a peaceful setting in which to work and where he hosted friends that included Colette, Paul Eluard, Jean Cocteau, and Picasso.

Around 1929, Poulenc had his first serious homosexual relationship, despite which he proposed marriage to his friend, Raymonde Linossier, who refused him and whose death in January 1930 at the age of 32 drove the composer into despair. Poulenc frequently struggled with depression, bouts of which interfered with his artistic output.

Tristan l’Hermite was the pseudonym of French dramatist and poet François l’Hermite (c.1601-1655) whose work inspired Claude Debussy and whose poems became popular amongst the Symbolists. However, there is no indication that the poet’s works found their way into Poulenc’s oeuvre.

Folded into quarters with three minor, light tape repairs on the verso; in very good condition.

Moving ALS on Love: “Love with all your senses, but never love with all your soul”