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The four songs of this cycle composed in 1956 and given the title 'Four Ballads' are an homage to four singers I admired : Magda Laszlo, whom I did not know but who stunned me at a concert in England, Marya Freund, a splendid vocal professor in Paris in the 1950s of Polish origin, the American Nell Tangeman and the Swiss Flore Wend--two sopranos with whom I often played. The cycle exists also with orchestra. Catherine Pozzi's poems are the principal inspiration of these songs. The poetess (1888-1934) was a friend of numerous writers--Anna de Noailles, Colette, Rilke, André Siegfried, Pierre-Jean Jouve, Paulhan, and especially Paul Valéry--but only started writing herself later in life. The poem 'Ave' appeared in 1929 under the name Karin Pozzi and the other poems in 1935 after her death.
