Petites Voix was written later in the same year that Poulenc wrote the music for Sept Chansons. Also that year he finished composing the Litanies lla Vierge Noir, a work for women’s or children’s voices and organ. These prayers were the first of Poulenc’s religious works, and were written at the time of a death of a friend which made a deep impression upon him. Hell (1959) reported that he made a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Rocamadoiir to see the Virgin carved out of black wood, the work of Saint Amadour who had climbed up a tree to see the figure of Christ. On the evening of this visit, which was in 1935, he began the composition. This religious work with organ accompaniment demonstrates the beginning of Poulenc’s religious style which is later found in Quatre Petites Prieres de Saint Francois d’Assise. In contrast to this religious style, he finished the Petites Voix the same year.
While Petites Voix is basically harmonically conceived, the individual lines have melodic interest. The boy sopranos as well as the girls’ chorus will sense the fluid quality of the individual lines and should sing with a sense of the ongoing motion of the music. Poulenc almost never left the basic tonality and its related keys throughout the songs in the cycle.
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Stephanie Henry says