This is a wonderful song, with an interplay between melody and harmony that constitutes a perfect example of Poulenc's very special personal brand of tenderness.

Francis Poulenc (1899 - 1963) is among the very finest French composers of art songs, carrying on the tradition of Fauré and Debussy. In his book chronicling his activity in this noble branch of classical music, Journal de mes melodies, Poulenc repeatedly states a belief that his songs do not come from intellect, but from the heart, and have to be performed—and indeed, received by the listener—in that mode.

Bleuet is a prime example. Poulenc wrote it in October 1939, the month after Hitler initiated World War II by invading Poland. French soldiers were mobilized, rushed to their formations, placed behind their ultimately useless defensive lines, and there was great patriotic sentiment. There was little loss at this point; Hitler held off turning westward until the late spring of the following year.

Yet Poulenc responded to the fact that the hundreds of thousands of young men were prepared to sacrifice themselves, and anticipated that many of them would. He turned to a poem written by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, at the height of France's prior war. The poet wrote it after being returned from the front after suffering a head wound.

The poem addresses a "Young man of twenty years," and is essentially a lament for the innocence, the happy years, that have been lost, watching his comrades fall around him.

The title is a poetic invention of Apollinaire's: Because of his uniform color, a French soldier was often called a "Blue" (Bleu) and "Bleuet" is a diminutive. Thus, the poet addresses his soldier as "Little Blue."

Poulenc's own discussion of this song in the Journal is one of his best. It is clear that he was concerned to avoid many of the traditional trappings of music regarding soldiers and death in battle: There is no martial music, and no heroics. There is no religious solemnity. Poulenc explained:

"I was quite simply moved to the depths of my being by the intensely human overtones of Apollinaire's poem. Humility, whether it concerns prayer or the sacrifice of a life, is what touches me most.

"It is five o'clock and you would know how to die

"if not better than your elders

"at least with more piety."

"That is for me the key to the poem, the perfect clarification of the drama."

The song is sweet in tone, with a light but active rhythm. The mode of expression is simple. Poulenc, in the same notes quote above, owns that he should have written "Intimately" as his initial expression marking, and his long-time song partner Pierre Bernac, in his own discussion of Poulenc's songs, adds, "...and also 'very legato and with simplicity.'"

The texture of the song usually gives the piano a countermelody to the baritone's line, and it is this gentle play of lyrical lines that creates much of the song's infinitely touching quality.

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