The research has been mainly focused on two large themes: Poulenc’s creativity in the prism of ‘cultural geographies’, and Poulenc tours in the US. In doing so, the researcher studied Poulenc’s artistic networks on several levels, whether in Touraine (where Poulenc owned a house), in the UK (through the connection of Poulenc with Berkeley and Britten) and in the US.
The researcher explored the first topic particularly during the first year of the project. He immersed himself in this field working with the scholar Dr. Ceri Morgan. By participating in her seminars, by studying the scholarly writings in this field, he renewed his approach of Poulenc. The researcher invited Professor Grimley, one of the rare musicologists who uses the approach of cultural geography, to speak at the multidisciplinary Study Day he organized, “Creative Responses to Places”.
The second theme, the American Tours of Poulenc, the researcher explored particularly during the second year of the project, proved to be more fertile than had been planned. Not only does this topic combines the problems of ‘Transnational Localism’, and involves crossing different methodologies, but it is also very new in the ‘Poulencquian’ field.
Therefore, the researcher has studied in depth the American newspapers, to understand the reception of Poulenc during his four tours. All these sources reveal a lot about the recognition and the international reputation of Poulenc as a French composer, as well as his self-promotion strategies after the WW2.
It was thus possible to begin to build on this research in several papers, as well as during the Symposium of the 3-4 July 2017, which the researcher organized at the RNCM, “Musicians and the Conquest of North America: Musical Travels and Cultural Politics”. This conference brought together 14 musicologists from several countries. The papers presented explored many aspects of the tours and the strategies of musicians, and also institutional, financial and political questions.
In addition to the Study Day and Symposium, the researcher and his supervisor organized a conference, the 23-24 November 2016, devoted to a central theme of the project: “Music & Nation, 1918-1945 - Europe and the Americas. Music, nationalism & transnationalism: diplomacy, politics & aesthetics” at the RNCM, in collaboration with Dr A. Fléchet, Dr M. Guerpin, Pr. P. Gumplowicz and Dr G. Demonet. The researcher participated in a roundtable addressing questions closely linked to the project and to the case of Poulenc.
The researcher also made an unexpected discovery while working in the US, of an unpublished piano piece by Poulenc. This is an important finding, as the thematic Catalogue of the composer’s work (1995) made the discovery of such new pieces very unlikely. This discovery has shaped the researcher’s work, as it became necessary to understand this piano piece (a very original piece, the particularity of which is that it has been composed in relationship to a pictorial work).
Simultaneously, the researcher has also deepened the themes previously mentioned, meeting specialists of the composer L. Berkeley, exploring the BBC Written Archives, the archives of the Britten-Pears Foundation, and working at the British Library. This research renewed his approach to the links between Poulenc and the UK, bringing to the fore new sources.
