Francis Poulenc: Nocturne No.4 In C minor 'Bal fantôme': Piano: Instrumental

Pour récitant et piano à quatre mains-During the visit to Brive-la-Gaillarde in 1940 Poulenc sketched a little piece for the children of his cousins: Sophie Sylvie Benoit Florence and Delphine Périer Yvan Alain Marie-Christine and Marguerite-MarieVillotte and their two friends Marthe Bosredon and André Lecoeur. This took the form of a musical background to Jean de Brunhoff's popular illustrated children's story about Babar a baby elephant whose mother is killed by ahuntsman. Fortunately Babar meets a kind elderly lady who dresses him in a fine suit and gives him an impressive motor-car.However Babar feels homesick for his forests and is pleased when his cousins Arthur and Celeste find him and needs no persuasion to go home with them. Back in the forest where the King of the Elephants has eaten a poisonous mushroom Babar is elected to succeed as King. He marries Celeste and the last we hear of him isthinking of a rosy future as he dreamily looks up at a marvellously star-filled sky.Poulenc's score to which he returned and completed in 1945 is for a narrator and a Piano so written that the individualsections offer the pianist a number of self-contained descriptive pieces such as a Lullaby a Reverie a Galop a Nocturne and so on. Indeed some of Poulenc's finest Piano music isfound in these charming pages.In 1962 Jean Françaix made an orchestral version and Barbar has been enjoyed by children of all ages all over the world. An English translation of the text was made by Nelly Rieu.Thisparticular edition is arranged for Narrator and Piano duet (1 Piano 4 hands) and a separate insert with English translation is included.