Figure humaine

Figure humaine
Cantata by Francis Poulenc
Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix (1830) (Louvre, Paris) – Liberté is the title of the song concluding the cantata, a hymn to "Liberty", victorious over tyranny.
Catalogue	FP 120
Text	poems by Paul Éluard from Poésie et Vérité
Language	French
Composed	1943
Performed	25 March 1945 (1945-03-25): London
Movements	8
Scoring	12 vocal parts a cappella

Figure humaine (Human Figure), FP 120, by Francis Poulenc is a cantata for double mixed choir of 12 voices composed in 1943 on texts by Paul Éluard including "'Liberté". Written during the Nazi occupation of France, it was premiered in London in English by the BBC in 1945. It was first performed in French in 1946 in Brussels, then in Paris on 22 May 1947. The work was published by Éditions Salabert. Cherished as the summit of the composer's work and a masterpiece by musical critics, the cantata is a hymn to Liberté, victorious over tyranny.

The meeting of Francis Poulenc and Paul Éluard dates from 1916 or 1917 during the First World War, at the Parisian bookstore of his friend Adrienne Monnier. When the composer Georges Auric met the writer around 1919, he suggested to Poulenc to set texts by Éluard to music. Éluard was the only surrealist writer who tolerated music, and the musicologist Peter Jost listed the works of Georges Auric and Francis Poulenc on his texts: six for Auric and 34 for Poulenc, augmented by three choral works including Figure humaine.

The poems of the cantata are among the most famous by Éluard. They express the "suffering of the people of France" reduced to silence and the hope of the "final triumph of freedom over tyranny".

The Second World War was a pivotal period in the life of the composer. In the Entretiens avec Claude Rostand, he specifies "Some privileged persons, of whom I was one, had the comfort of receiving morning letters, marvelous typed poems, below whose names we guessed the signature of Paul Éluard. This is how I received most of the poems Poésie et Vérité 42. Poulenc rented a small two-room appartment in Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne and began composing a violin concerto at the request of Ginette Neveu but quickly abandoned this work.