Unlike most early twentieth century  French composers, Claude Debussy did not engage in any formal institutional teaching. However, he did have one "disciple", André Caplet,  (1878-1925) a brilliant young French pianist, conductor and composer, who effectively became his assistant, almost his musical secretary, conducting many of the early performances of "Pelléas et Mélisande" including its first London performance. 

This evening we bring you many of those songs written between 1902 and 1924. Some of the grandest were written while on active service in the trenches as a soldier in the French army during World War 1, including one which Pierre Bernac, the great French baritone for whom Poulenc wrote more than half of his songs, declared on one occasion to be in his opinion the finest song in the entire repertoire of piano-accompanied French song, and which will be among the songs you will hear.