Chanson à boire (Poulenc)

Chanson à boire,[note 1] (Drinking song), FP 31, is a choral work by Francis Poulenc, composed in 1922 on an anonymous text of the 17th century for a four-part men's chorus a cappella.

Chanson à boire is Poulenc's first choral work, commissioned by a student choir, the Glee Club of Harvard University in the United States.

In an interview with Claude Rostand dated 1954, he said: When my song was finished, I sent it to Harvard.

Meanwhile, the Prohibition Act had just passed, and made this work impossible to sing.

Then I forgot all about it, when, twenty-eight years later, in 1950, being in Holland, the president of the admirable male choir of the Hague invited me to listen to a repetition of my prayers Of St. Francis of Assisi and ... of this "Song to drink".