Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Babar the Elephant

Story by Jean de Brunhoff

The French writer and illustrator Jean de Brunhoff created the character of Babar the
Elephant in 1931. It was an immediate success across France and eventually across
the world. The origin of Poulencs setting was a party of Poulencs cousins, where the
composer was idly improvising at the piano. One of the young nieces approached
Poulenc to tell him that what he was playing was boring, and insisted that he play the
book Babar instead. So, willingly, Poulenc improvised musical interludes to
accompany the book, to an appreciative audience. He later wrote them down and
often performed the piece with the baritone Pierre Bernac as narrator. The story is
appealing both for its dry wit and for the sometimes bizarre turn of events, so
perfectly matched in Poulencs score.