Pierre Reverdy et les musiciens

Recent scholarship on Pierre Reverdy has neglected to study the relationship between Reverdy's poetry and music. The union of the two arts was questioned after André Breton's rejection of it. However, in a tribute to Reverdy back in 1962, composer Henry Barraud shared memories of his encounters with the poet and disclosed the talks they had had on his radio show about transposing poems into music. This article sets out to explore the fragile and little-known connection between Reverdy and music, as documented by his aesthetic debates with musicians such as in the radio broadcast and the unpublished correspondence with Barraud, and through the evidence of musical works inspired by his poems by artists of different generations. Notable associations between Reverdy's poetry and music are, among others, a piece of 1927 by André Jolivet, an early example of influence on Olivier Messiaen, the successive compositions of Betsy Jolas from 1949 through to 2009, and, finally, the 1989 centenary of the poet as celebrated by five pieces for solo guitar, each written by a different composer, and based upon the 1919 collection La Guitare endormie.