Eva Kong / Soprano

Alex Raineri / Piano

Live performance from the 2020 Brisbane Music Festival 'Streamed Series'.

Jai Farrell / Audio Engineer & Videographer

'C' is the first of a set of two songs Poulenc composed in 1944, settings of poems by the surrealist poet and novelist Louis Aragon. The title of the song refers to a commune in France called “The Bridges of Ce” which is alluded to the in the opening line of the text. This location is historically significant due to its bloody history. The poem bridges between the past and present - past warfare echoing the perilous state of France during Nazi occupation at the time of composition. Poulenc creates a musical bridge between the old world and the new. The stylistic persuasion of the piece hearkens to the sentimental aesthetic of 19th century romanticism, but is presented in a notably chromatic context (set in the bizarre key of Ab minor).