Francis Poulenc

Started by Boris_G, July 16, 2007, 12:01:59 PM

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ritter

#160
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 24, 2014, 02:01:41 PM
The chamber music is definitely more intimate, as one would expect considering the instrumentation. I love the orchestral and chamber music equally, because they offer a glimpse a composer who was in some kind of constant rotation. I'm thinking of picking up a book on Poulenc pretty soon.

To my fellow Poulenc fans, what would you say are Poulenc's top 5 masterpieces and why?
Perhaps "masterpieces" is not really the appropriate a word, but my personal favourites could be (in no particular order):

1) Les Biches --complete ballet-- (FP 036a)
2) Gloria (FP 177)
3) Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for voice and piano (FP 122) -- the mélodie "C" is just breathtaking (Louis Aragon's text and Poulenc's setting)
4) Concerto for piano and orchestra (FP 146)
5) Suite française d'après Claude Gervaise --either the orchestral version (FP 082a) or for piano solo (FP 082b)


TheGSMoeller

Quote from: ritter on February 24, 2014, 11:52:35 PM
Perhaps "masterpieces" is not really the appropriate a word, but my personal favourites could be (in no particular order):

1) Les Biches --complete ballet-- (FP 036a)
2) Gloria (FP 177)
3) Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for voice and piano (FP 122) -- the mélodie "C" is just breathtaking (Louis Aragon's text and Poulenc's setting)
4) Concerto for piano and orchestra (FP 146)
5) Suite française d'après Claude Gervaise --either the orchestral version (FP 082a) or for piano solo (FP 082b)

Good list, ritter, with more great music from Poulenc.

Cato

The Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings is an all-around fave!  I believe it was the first composition by Poulenc that I ever heard c. 1965 or so.

Karl Haas on his radio show often featured Poulenc's works.

Dialogues of the Carmelites, anyone?
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: Cato on February 25, 2014, 06:05:11 AM
The Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings is an all-around fave!  I believe it was the first composition by Poulenc that I ever heard c. 1965 or so.

Karl Haas on his radio show often featured Poulenc's works.

Dialogues of the Carmelites, anyone?

I miss Adventures In Good Music, safe to say I was the only kid in my high school jamming to it on my car stereo.

Sometimes the film Carnival of Souls comes to mind when I listen to the Organ Concerto.

And yes, Cato, Carmelites is fantastic. I've only heard the Nagano conducted performance however.

Cato

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on February 25, 2014, 06:14:46 AM
I miss Adventures In Good Music, safe to say I was the only kid in my high school jamming to it on my car stereo.

Sometimes the film Carnival of Souls comes to mind when I listen to the Organ Concerto.


Karl Haas had his likes and his quirks: one did not hear middle or late Schoenberg as one of the "adventures."  And the Webernian school was also absent.

But certainly Poulenc, Bartok, Hindemith, Honegger, etc. were often heard as examples of 20th Century styles.

Quote from: TheGSMoeller on February 25, 2014, 06:14:46 AM

Sometimes the film Carnival of Souls comes to mind when I listen to the Organ Concerto.


That was one freaky movie!   8)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Mirror Image

Quote from: ritter on February 24, 2014, 11:52:35 PM
Perhaps "masterpieces" is not really the appropriate a word, but my personal favourites could be (in no particular order):

1) Les Biches --complete ballet-- (FP 036a)
2) Gloria (FP 177)
3) Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for voice and piano (FP 122) -- the mélodie "C" is just breathtaking (Louis Aragon's text and Poulenc's setting)
4) Concerto for piano and orchestra (FP 146)
5) Suite française d'après Claude Gervaise --either the orchestral version (FP 082a) or for piano solo (FP 082b)

Great list! Love Les Biches, Gloria, Piano Concerto, and Suite Francaise, but have not heard Deux poemes de Louis Aragon.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Cato on February 25, 2014, 06:05:11 AM
The Concerto for Organ, Timpani, and Strings is an all-around fave!  I believe it was the first composition by Poulenc that I ever heard c. 1965 or so.

Karl Haas on his radio show often featured Poulenc's works.

Dialogues of the Carmelites, anyone?

Yes, to both Dialogues of the Carmelites and the Organ Concerto. Both incredibly fine works and show Poulenc in a completely different light. One thing I've been stressing to newer listeners of Poulenc is that one shouldn't get comfortable with his music and what I mean by this is he shouldn't be pigeonholed or boxed in any kind of way. He was a composer who was completely free to express himself and has a wide compositional range.

Ken B

Quote from: Mirror Image on February 26, 2014, 06:36:39 AM
Yes, to both Dialogues of the Carmelites and the Organ Concerto. Both incredibly fine works and show Poulenc in a completely different light. One thing I've been stressing to newer listeners of Poulenc is that one shouldn't get comfortable with his music and what I mean by this is he shouldn't be pigeonholed or boxed in any kind of way. He was a composer who was completely free to express himself and has a wide compositional range.
Yes exactly. The image I formed early on from the orchestral and some piano pieces got a jolt when I heard the chamber and choral stuff some years later. Less Satie more  Faure, if that makes sense.

Mirror Image

Quote from: Ken B on February 26, 2014, 06:41:22 AM
Yes exactly. The image I formed early on from the orchestral and some piano pieces got a jolt when I heard the chamber and choral stuff some years later. Less Satie more  Faure, if that makes sense.

Well, I can't remember who said that Poulenc was 'half-delinquent, half-monk," but I certainly wouldn't argue with that assessment. :)

ritter

#169
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 25, 2014, 05:56:50 PM
...but have not heard Deux poemes de Louis Aragon.
Here you have one of the two songs, the "C" I was raving about...it lasts less tan three minutes...the tessitura is fiendishly difficult for any voice type...this video has the advantage of displaying the words in the original French and translated into English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfNKZrPh0ho

Aragon's poem deals with France's defeat in 1940, using some quite astonishing images (all of which bear some relation with the historical event, without mentioning it as such), and Poulenc's setting is full of melancholy (which requires great control by the singer if he or she wants to avoid falling into cheap sentimentality--often a risk with Poulenc).

Note: I don't have a clue how to insert YouTube videos in a message :(, so I just give the link. :-[

ritter

#170
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 26, 2014, 06:45:17 AM
Well, I can't remember who said that Poulenc was 'half-delinquent, half-monk," but I certainly wouldn't argue with that assessment. :)
It was critic Claude Rostand..."le moine et le voyou" was the original phrase. :)  (he could have added "millionaire" too...Poulenc was born into a rather well-off family of industrialists)...

Ken B

Quote from: ritter on February 26, 2014, 07:27:16 AM
It was critic Claude Rostand..."le moine et le voyou" was the original phrase. :)  (he could have added "millionaire" too...Poulenc was born into a rather well-off family of industrialists)...
He was heir to Poulenc-Rhone I thought, making him one of the richest men in France.

ritter

Quote from: Ken B on February 26, 2014, 07:51:21 AM
He was heir to Poulenc-Rhone I thought, making him one of the richest men in France.
Exactly... :)

TheGSMoeller

Quote from: Mirror Image on February 24, 2014, 08:12:11 PM
The only work I haven't heard from your list is Figure Humaine. Will change this at some point.

Accentus, Temebrae, The Sixteen and Swedish Radio Choir all have quality recordings of it, can't go wrong with any of them.

Mirror Image

Quote from: ritter on February 26, 2014, 07:24:09 AM
Here you have one of the two songs, the "C" I was raving about...it lasts less tan three minutes...the tessitura is fiendishly difficult for any voice type...this video has the advantage of displaying the words in the original French and translated into English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfNKZrPh0ho

Aragon's poem deals with France's defeat in 1940, using some quite astonishing images (all of which bear some relation with the historical event, without mentioning it as such), and Poulenc's setting is full of melancholy (which requires great control by the singer if he or she wants to avoid falling into cheap sentimentality--often a risk with Poulenc).

Note: I don't have a clue how to insert YouTube videos in a message :(, so I just give the link. :-[

Thanks for this, Ritter. I tend to avoid works for just voice and piano as I like more instruments included. I do enjoy the human voice, but I don't like the limited sonic palette of just voice with piano. I need either other instruments or even another harmonic instrument like harp or vibraphone for example. I know I'm picky, but who isn't, right? ;D

Mirror Image

Quote from: ritter on February 26, 2014, 07:27:16 AM
It was critic Claude Rostand..."le moine et le voyou" was the original phrase. :)  (he could have added "millionaire" too...Poulenc was born into a rather well-off family of industrialists)...

Ah, okay. I remember reading about this many years ago.

ritter

#176
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 26, 2014, 05:00:18 PM
Thanks for this, Ritter. I tend to avoid works for just voice and piano as I like more instruments included. I do enjoy the human voice, but I don't like the limited sonic palette of just voice with piano. I need either other instruments or even another harmonic instrument like harp or vibraphone for example. I know I'm picky, but who isn't, right? ;D
Your statement is fully understandable, Mirror Image... I myself think that in German Lied, French mélodie, and so on, the text is as important as the music. That's what I like so much of the Poulenc song I gave you the link to. I don't know if you speak languages other than English , but I'm lucky enough to be fluent in several major European languages, and thus am in a position to enjoy this kind of pieces fully. But to be honest, songs in e.g. Russian or Czech (languages I don't speak at all), I really can't enjoy that much. :-[

And we all have a right to be picky! I for one can't stand much of the work by a composer that graced your avatar some days ago ;) , but that's my loss, not his.. :D, right?


Mirror Image

#177
Quote from: ritter on February 27, 2014, 05:35:15 AM
Your statement is fully understandable, Mirror Image... I myself think that in German Lied, French mélodie, and so on, the text is as important as the music. That's what I like so much of the Poulenc song I gave you the link to. I don't know if you speak languages other than English , but I'm lucky enough to be fluent in several major European languages, and thus am in a position to enjoy this kind of pieces fully. But to be honest, songs in e.g. Russian or Czech (languages I don't speak at all), I really can't enjoy that much. :-[

And we all have a right to be picky! I for one can't stand much of the work by a composer that graced your avatar some days ago ;) , but that's my loss, not is his.. :D, right?

Agreed. Of course I speak horrible English, but I also speak some Spanish, but I couldn't carry on an in-depth conversation in Spanish, though, but I'm working on it. Which composer could you not stand? I go through so many avatar changes...

ritter

#178
Quote from: Mirror Image on February 27, 2014, 05:57:11 AM
Which composer could you not stand? I go through so many avatar changes...
Ritter trembles, fearful of the wrath his affront can unleash, as he hesitantly types the letters D S  C   H    .....  :-[   :)

Ken B

Quote from: ritter on February 27, 2014, 07:52:40 AM
Ritter trembles, as he types the letter D S  C   H    .....  :-[   :)
RUN FOR THE HILLS!