Francis Poulenc
Francis Poulenc was the leading composer of Les Six, the French group devoted to turning music away from Impressionism, formality, and intellectualism. He wrote in a direct and tuneful manner, often juxtaposing the witty and ironic with the sentimental or melancholy. He heavily favored diatonic and modal textures over chromatic writing. His music also shows many elements of pandiatonicism, introduced around 1920 by Stravinsky, whose influence can be heard in some of Poulenc's compositions, such as the religious choral work Gloria. Poulenc is regarded as one of the most important 20th century composers of religious music, and in the realm of the French art song, he is also a major voice of his time. Poulenc was also a pianist of considerable ability.
Poulenc was born in Paris on January 7, 1899, into a wealthy family of pharmaceutical magnates. The agrochemical giant Rhone-Poulenc is the present-day corporation started by his forebears. His mother was a talented amateur pianist who began giving him piano lessons at age five. Later, Poulenc studied with a niece of César Franck and then with the eminent Spanish virtuoso Ricardo Viñes, for whom he would later write music. At age eighteen, Poulenc wrote Rapsodie Nègre for baritone and chamber ensemble, which made him an overnight sensation in France. The young composer served in the military during the years 1918 to 1921, during which time he composed the popular Trois Mouvements Perpétuels (1918).
By 1920, Les Six -- Georges Auric, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Germaine Tailleferre (the sextet's lone female representative), Louis Durey, and Francis Poulenc -- had begun making its impression on the music world. In 1923, Poulenc wrote the ballet Les Biches, which Diaghilev staged the following year with great success, the public finding its mixture of lightness, gaiety, and occasional moments of sentimentality irresistible. Poulenc continued writing at a fairly prolific pace in the late '20s and early '30s, producing many piano compositions, songs, and other works. In 1935, he rekindled his friendship with baritone Pierre Bernac, thus launching a productive and enduring professional relationship. He also returned to the Roman Catholic Church that year when close friend Pierre-Octave Ferroud was killed in an automobile accident. Thereafter, he wrote many important works of a religious nature, the first of which were Litanies à la Vierge Noire, for soloists, chorus, and organ, and Mass in G for mixed a cappella chorus, both from 1936.
During World War II, Poulenc remained in German-occupied France, writing music of an antiwar or defiantly anti-Nazi bent, sometimes writing songs on texts by banned authors, such as Lorca. He also wrote a ballet, Les Animaux Modèles (1940-1941), Sonata for violin and piano (1942-1943; rev. 1949) dedicated to Lorca, and the masterful Figure Humaine (1943), a choral cantata which is a hymn to freedom. In the postwar years, Poulenc turned out his Sinfonietta (1947) and Piano Concerto (1949), both not entirely successful. In the period from 1953 to 1956, Poulenc produced his most ambitious work, the opera Dialogue des Carmelites, considered by many the greatest French opera of the 20th century.
Poulenc finished his last opera in 1958, La Voix Humaine, a work whose lone character talks (sings) on the phone to her deserting lover for the work's 45-minute length. Notable also in this period is his Gloria (1959), a work shorn of sanctimony and rich in communicative simplicity and fervent religiosity. Poulenc's last major work was his Sonata for Oboe and Piano in 1962, dedicated to the memory of Prokofiev, whom he had befriended in the 1920s. Poulenc died suddenly of a heart attack on January 30, 1963.
© Robert Cummings /TiVo
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Meet the Composer - Francis Poulenc Playing His Own Works
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 1 Apr 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Francis Poulenc - Trio for Oboe, Bassoon & Piano Op. 43 / Trio für Oboe, Fagott & Klavier Opus 43 / Trio pour basson, hautbois et piano
Classical - Released by K&K Verlagsanstalt on 10 Jan 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: Aubade & Sinfonietta (Mono Version)
Francis Poulenc, Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, Georges Prêtre
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
La Voce del Pianoforte
Classical - Released by Twilight Music on 3 Feb 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Remembering Poulenc with Orchestre de Paris
Francis Poulenc, Orchestre de Paris
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 21 Jun 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Boston Symphony Orchestra: Poulenc & Prokofiev
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Francis Poulenc, Sergei Prokofiev
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 7 Jan 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: La Bal Masqué, Trio, Le Bestiaire and Sextet
Classical - Released by CRD Records on 1 Jan 1986
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cello Encores
Luciano Tarantino, Giuseppe Bini
Classical - Released by Farelive on 4 Mar 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: Sextet for Piano and Wind Quintet, Op. 100 - Riegger: Concerto for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, Op. 53
Classical - Released by Everest Records on 7 Mar 1961
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Voyage A Paris: Songs of Francis Poulenc
Classical - Released by Arabesque Recordings on 25 Aug 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Cocardes, FP 16b: II. Bonne d’Enfant
John Andrews, Manchester Camerata
Classical - Released by Resonus Classics on 12 Apr 2024
24-Bit 192.0 kHz - Stereo -
Soirée Française
Classical - Released by Sony Classical on 1 Apr 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Kyrie
Andrew Nethsingha, The Choir of St John's College, Cambridge
Classical - Released by Signum Records on 1 Sep 2017
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: Les Animaux modèles, Concert champêtre pour piano et orchestre & Improvisations 13, 15
Classical - Released by Avie Records on 12 Oct 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: Suite française d'après Claude Gervaise (Mono Version)
Symphonic Music - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Poulenc: Mélodies (Remastered, Mono Version)
Pierre Bernac, Francis Poulenc
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Rediscovering French Operas in 21 Volumes - Vol. 14/21 : Le Dialogue des Carmélites
Opera - Released by ISIS on 5 Jan 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Songs of Love and War
Malcolm Martineau, Cantabile - The London Quartet
Classical - Released by Champs Hill Records on 1 Feb 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Erik Satie - Francis Poulenc Plays the Piano Music of Satie and Poulenc
Pop - Released by EL records on 1 Jan 1950
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
An Impression of France
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 23 Mar 2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Les Mamelles de Tiresias (1953 cast recording)
Classical - Released by LTM Recordings on 1 Jan 1953
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo