In the second of her talks exploring the mélodies of Debussy, Barbara Kelly will turn to the Ariettes oubliées. With poetry by Verlaine, these six songs find Debussy indulging in ecstasy, in the monotony of rain, in a wonderfully fresh and seductive love song, ‘Green’, in which the agile vocal line at last settles on a series of low repeated notes as the lover too settles on his beloved’s breast. Finally pre-echoing the Wagnerian Baudelaire songs, a song of heartbreak, where all depends on the final ‘hélas!’, placed with apparent insouciance in the middle of a phrase, leaving the piano to pick up the pieces.  Barbara Kelly will place Debussy’s songs in the context of 19^th and 20^th-century French, German, Hungarian and British song traditions, making comparisons with Liszt, Strauss, Hahn and Britten, which will be heard in tonight’s programme.