Babar the Elephant

One of the key French composers of the first half of the 20th century, Françis Poulenc (1899-1963) developed a distinctly recognizable musical language, infused with Neoclassical ideas, humorous energy, melodic clarity and hints to popular music styles. He was a member of Les Six (The Six), whose anti-Wagnerian and anti-Impressionist philosophy inundated Paris with youthfulness and eclecticism during the 1920s and beyond. Poulenc’s compositions moved toward a more serious style toward the latter half of his career. His opuses consist of ballets, operas, chamber and vocal music, in addition to numerous piano works (Poulenc was a superb pianist himself).
L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant) was originally composed for narrator and piano in 1945 and based on the book by Jean de Brunhoff, Histoire de Babar. It started as a casual sketch a few years prior, after his cousin’s children asked Poulenc to play the piano alongside the book. The story, featuring quite a popular book and cartoon character, Babar, features many programmatic, illustrative musical devices and forms (lullaby, waltz, march, polka, nocturne). The narrative leads through various stages of the elephant’s journey: birth, youth, loss of his mother, finding his cousins, becoming the King of Elephants, and marriage. Jean Françaix orchestrated the music in 1963. This performance, for narrator and wind ensemble, was created by Bastiaan Blomhert in 1985.

(c) Jason Stell and Jessica Embach Jankauskas