Matteo Fossi

An impressive group of Italian soloists have gathered around Florentine pianist Matteo Fossi, to offer us this complete recording of Poulenc's chamber music: a genre which he dipped into in an eclectic and intermittent manner. We can find some "classical" formations, like two pianos or a piano four hands, piano and cello, flute and piano (surely his most famous piece of chamber music), violin and piano, clarinet and piano, and then some even more unusual - and intensely French - configurations, such as trio for horn, trumpet and trombone; the sextet for piano; and the wind quintet, alongside others of the same ilk. We can only regret that the composer spent so little time on this format, even if the majority of these pieces are real master-works (which is always preferable to producing tons and tons of so-so stuff...), in which simplicity, wit, spontaneity and clarity alternate - above all in the later works - with that same depth which is often found in his great religious pieces. © SM/Qobuz