WORLD WAR I CENTENNIAL
‘A young man of twenty…’ Thus begins Guillaume Apollinaire’s poem inspired by the life cut short of a young soldier in World War I trenches, set to music by Francis Poulenc.
In 1918, when the war was ending, Francis Poulenc and Hanns Eisler were 20 years old. The two composers, who lived and died a few months apart, came from rival camps, France and Germany. Eisler was an ardent socialist; Poulenc the heir of a substantial fortune. Representatives of two different worlds, they both left their mark on 20th century music with the songs they composed.
– Francis Poulenc: Songs on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire
– Hanns Eisler: Hollywood Songbook (texts by Bertolt Brecht)
Holger Falk baritone
Julius Drake piano
Organised as part of the
international conference The Birth of Contemporary Europe: World War I, Music and the Arts,
co-organised by The Friends of Music Society’s Music Library of Greece ‘Lilian Voudouri,’ The Athens Concert Hall, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture’s Directorate of Intangible Cultural Heritage, The National Historical Museum, The National Library of Greece, and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.
For more information, please visit http://ww1-music-conf.eu/