With his extensive Lieder output, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) made some of the most beautiful, important, and varied contributions to this genre in the 20th century. With soaring and sparkling French esprit, brilliant melodies and fireworks displays of colors and harmonies that encompass all possible moods, from meditative stillness to exuberant gaiety and frivolity, are virtuosically combined, lending the sophisticated poetry of his celebrated contemporaries like Apollinaire and Éluard an incomparably sonorous countenance. With this album, pianist and singer Matthias Veit presents a kaleidoscope of several of the composer's most popular song cycles. A simultaneous balancing act between voice and keyboard! Matthias Veit studied piano with Gernot Kahl and voice with Susanne Korzuscheck, Peter Elkus and Tom Krause. Since 1999 he has been teaching at several music academies in Germany as well as continuing to record for television and record companies.