Voici l'extrait d'un entretien avec Henri Dutilleux sur les sonnets de Jean Cassou:
I chose three of the Trente-Trois Sonnets composés au secret, published during the Occupation, as I've already said, by the underground press Editions de Minuit (Jean Cassou was still in prison at the time). I had already set one of them, which I called `La Geôle’, and dedicated it to my brother Paul, who was held in a prisoner-of-war-camp. That song has been published.
I had been greatly struck by the beauty of these sonnets, in which contained violence was mingled with gentleness, and in 1954 I read them again. Their nobility of thought, now that they are distanced from the terrible times that gave rise to them, places them in the category of pure lyric poetry. I should like to quote Cassou himself when he refers to these lines, ‘at last delivered from the sob that gave them birth’.
Much later, in 1982, it was a very moving experience for me to stand next to him at a ceremony at the Elysée Palace, when we were both decorated by François Mitterand. But on that occasion it was not only the poet that the president was honoring, it was the great Resistance leader – ‘Jean Noir’ to give his underground name.
So in 1954 I started to set three more of these sonnets with the idea of including the `La Geôle’ in the cycle.These songs were broadcast by the BBC in 1991 and have been since published and recorded.
Bruno
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Originally Posted by Humphrey Plugg
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