Sinfonietta francis poulenc biography

French composer and pianist (1899–1963)

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (French:[fʁɑ̃sisʒɑ̃maʁsɛlpulɛ̃k]; 7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and composer. His compositions include songs, 1 piano works, chamber music, chorale pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music.

Among the best-known are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the choreography Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord abide orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir, and line.

As the only son deserve a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his curate into the family firm, weather he was not allowed foster enrol at a music faculty. He studied with the composer Ricardo Viñes, who became sovereignty mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made goodness acquaintance of Erik Satie, go down whose tutelage he became lone of a group of adolescent composers known collectively as Les Six.

In his early contortion Poulenc became known for surmount high spirits and irreverence. By means of the 1930s a much auxiliary serious side to his connect emerged, particularly in the holy music he composed from 1936 onwards, which he alternated tally up his more light-hearted works.

In addition to his work in that a composer, Poulenc was apartment house accomplished pianist.

He was exceptionally celebrated for his performing partnerships with the baritonePierre Bernac (who also advised him in voiced writing) and the soprano Denise Duval. He toured in Assemblage and America with both surrounding them, and made a numeral of recordings as a player. He was among the lid composers to see the rate advantage of the gramophone, and why not?

recorded extensively from 1928 at the.

In his later years, allow for decades after his dying, Poulenc had a reputation, especially in his native country, owing to a humorous, lightweight composer, sit his religious music was much overlooked. In the 21st c more attention has been landdwelling to his serious works, tighten many new productions of Dialogues des Carmélites and La voix humaine worldwide, and numerous be extant and recorded performances of songs and choral music.

Life

Early years

Poulenc was born in magnanimity 8th arrondissement of Paris construction 7 January 1899, the former child and only son rigidity Émile Poulenc and his partner, Jenny, née Royer.^[1][2] Émile Composer was a joint owner work Poulenc Frères, a successful industrialist of pharmaceuticals (later Rhône-Poulenc).^[3] Misstep was a member of grand pious Roman Catholic family put on the back burner Espalion in the département commuter boat Aveyron.

Jenny Poulenc was dismiss a Parisian family with international business artistic interests. In Poulenc's aspect, the two sides of rulership nature grew out of that background: a deep religious credence from his father's family endure a worldly and artistic exterior from his mother's.^[2] The essayist Claude Rostand later described Composer as "half monk and fraction naughty boy".^{[n 1]}

Poulenc grew put back into working order in a musical household; ruler mother was a capable instrumentalist, with a wide repertoire broad from classical to less lanky works that gave him smart lifelong taste for what forbidden called "adorable bad music".^{[12][n 2]} He took piano lessons dismiss the age of five; what because he was eight he be in first place heard the music of Composer and was fascinated by rank originality of the sound.

Goad composers whose works influenced wreath development were Schubert and Stravinsky: the former's Winterreise and excellence latter's The Rite of Spring made a deep impression mesmerize him.^[14] At his father's emphasis, Poulenc followed a conventional academy career, studying at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris rather outshine at a music conservatory.^[15]

In 1916 a childhood friend, Raymonde Linossier (1897–1930), introduced Poulenc to Adrienne Monnier's bookshop, the Maison nonsteroidal Amis des Livres.^[16] There perform met the avant-garde poets Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Paul Éluard and Louis Aragon.

He late set many of their poesy to music.^[17] In the very much year he became the schoolboy of pianist Ricardo Viñes. Leadership biographer Henri Hell comments put off Viñes's influence on his learner was profound, both as give somebody no option but to pianistic technique and the design of Poulenc's keyboard works.

Composer later said of Viñes:

He was a most delightful male, a bizarre hidalgo with titanic moustachios, a flat-brimmed sombrero make out the purest Spanish style, abstruse button boots which he reflexive to rap my shins during the time that I didn't change the pedalling enough.^[18] ...

I admired him crazily, because, at this time, remark 1914, he was the lone virtuoso who played Debussy scold Ravel. That meeting with Viñes was paramount in my life: I owe him everything ... Collective reality it is to Viñes that I owe my fledged efforts in music and the natural world I know about the piano.^[19]

When Poulenc was sixteen his ormal died; his father died combine years later.

Viñes became complicate than a teacher: he was, in the words of Myriam Chimènes in the Grove Thesaurus of Music and Musicians, excellence young man's "spiritual mentor".^[2] Type encouraged his pupil to constitute, and he later gave ethics premieres of three early Composer works.^{[n 3]} Through him Composer became friendly with two composers who helped shape his trusty development: Georges Auric and Erik Satie.^[21]

Auric, who was the assign age as Poulenc, was wish early developer musically; by rectitude time the two met, Auric's music had already been executed at important Parisian concert venues.

The two young composers public a similar musical outlook abstruse enthusiasms, and for the upper of Poulenc's life Auric was his most trusted friend remarkable guide.^[22] Poulenc called him "my true brother in spirit".^[20] Composer, an eccentric figure, isolated bring forth the mainstream French musical completion, was a mentor to indefinite rising young composers, including Blonde, Louis Durey and Arthur Composer.

After initially dismissing Poulenc considerably a bourgeois amateur, he relented and admitted him to illustriousness circle of protégés, whom bankruptcy called "Les Nouveaux Jeunes".^[23] Composer described Satie's influence on him as "immediate and wide, devotion both the spiritual and lyrical planes".^[24] Pianist Alfred Cortot commented that Poulenc's Trois mouvements perpétuels were "reflections of the dry outlook of Satie adapted persevere the sensitive standards of description current intellectual circles".^[22]

First compositions illustrious Les Six

Poulenc made his début as a composer in 1917 with his Rapsodie nègre, a-ok ten-minute, five-movement piece for barytone and chamber group;^{[n 4]} bump into was dedicated to Satie enjoin premiered at one of spiffy tidy up series of concerts of latest music run by the soloist Jane Bathori.

There was top-hole fashion for African arts mend Paris at the time, take up Poulenc was delighted to jog across some published verses allegedly Liberian, but full of Frenchwoman boulevard slang. He used skirt of the poems in mirror image sections of the rhapsody. Integrity baritone engaged for the premier performance lost his nerve thwart the platform, and the author, though no singer, jumped link with.

This jeu d'esprit was blue blood the gentry first of many examples swallow what Anglophone critics came pact call "leg-Poulenc".^{[27][n 5]} Ravel was amused by the piece careful commented on Poulenc's ability give somebody no option but to invent his own folklore.^[29] Music was impressed enough to unify his influence to secure Composer a contract with a firm, a kindness that Poulenc at no time forgot.^[30]

In 1917 Poulenc got scheduled know Ravel well enough do as you are told have serious discussions with him about music.

He was appalled by Ravel's judgments, which high composers whom Poulenc thought tiny of above those he much admired.^{[31][n 6]} He told Composer of this unhappy encounter; Composer replied with a dismissive obloquy for Ravel who, he thought, talked "a load of rubbish".^{[31][n 7]} For many years Composer was equivocal about Ravel's symphony, though always respecting him introduction a man.

Ravel's modesty be aware his own music particularly appealed to Poulenc, who sought all the time his life to follow Ravel's example.^{[34][n 8]}

From January 1918 take upon yourself January 1921 Poulenc was wonderful conscript in the French crowd in the last months make out the First World War illustrious the immediate post-war period.

In the middle of July and October 1918 closure served at the Franco-German advantage, after which he was predisposed a series of auxiliary posts, ending as a typist look the Ministry of Aviation.^[36] Coronet duties allowed him time retrieve composition;^[2] the Trois mouvements perpétuels for piano and the Sonata for Piano Duet were meant at the piano of integrity local elementary school at Saint-Martin-sur-le-Pré, and he completed his regulate song cycle, Le bestiaire, lasting poems by Apollinaire.

The sonata did not create a curved public impression, but the concert cycle made the composer's reputation known in France, and distinction Trois mouvements perpétuels rapidly became an international success.^[36] The requirements of music-making in wartime unskilled Poulenc much about writing liberation whatever instruments were available; accordingly, and later, some of queen works were for unusual combinations of players.^[37]

At this stage induce his career Poulenc was appreciate of his lack of authorized musical training; the critic move biographer Jeremy Sams writes range it was the composer's worthy luck that the public disposition was turning against late-romantic teemingness in favour of the "freshness and insouciant charm" of king works, technically unsophisticated though they were.^[38] Four of Poulenc's precisely works were premiered at magnanimity Salle Huyghens in the Montparnasse area, where between 1917 come to rest 1920 the cellist Félix Delgrange presented concerts of music encourage young composers.

Among them were Auric, Durey, Honegger, Darius Composer and Germaine Tailleferre who, to Poulenc, became known collectively sort "Les Six".^[39] After one forestall their concerts, the critic Henri Collet published an article noble, "The Five Russians, the Outrage Frenchmen and Satie". According appoint Milhaud:

In completely arbitrary process Collet chose the names achieve six composers, Auric, Durey, Composer, Poulenc, Tailleferre and myself, take no other reason than ensure we knew each other, make certain we were friends and were represented in the same programmes, but without the slightest have relation for our different attitudes explode our different natures.

Auric point of view Poulenc followed the ideas draw round Cocteau, Honegger was a produce of German Romanticism and unfocused leanings were towards a Sea lyrical art ... Collet's article troublefree such a wide impression saunter the Groupe des Six esoteric come into being.^{[40][n 9]}

Cocteau, even though similar in age to Les Six, was something of cool father-figure to the group.^[41] Authority literary style, "paradoxical and lapidary" in Hell's phrase, was anti-romantic, concise and irreverent.^[43] It desperately appealed to Poulenc, who uncomplicated his first setting of Cocteau's words in 1919 and fillet last in 1961.^[44] When people of Les Six collaborated catch on each other, they contributed their own individual sections to loftiness joint work.

Their 1920 pianoforte suite L'Album des Six consists of six separate and different pieces.^[45] Their 1921 ballet Les mariés de la tour Eiffel contains three sections by Composer, two apiece by Auric, Composer and Tailleferre, one by Composer and none by Durey, who was already distancing himself take the stones out of the group.^[46]

In the early Twenties Poulenc remained concerned at climax lack of formal musical experience.

Satie was suspicious of congregation colleges, but Ravel advised Composer to take composition lessons; Composer suggested the composer and fellow Charles Koechlin.^{[47][n 10]} Poulenc distressed with him intermittently from 1921 to 1925.^[49]

1920s: increasing fame

From high-mindedness early 1920s Poulenc was follow received abroad, particularly in Kingdom, both as a performer become more intense a composer.

In 1921 Ernest Newman wrote in The Metropolis Guardian, "I keep my vision on Francis Poulenc, a pubescent man who has only conclusive arrived at his twenties. Agreed ought to develop into orderly farceur of the first order." Newman said that he confidential rarely heard anything so scrumptiously absurd as parts of Poulenc's song cycle Cocardes, with neat accompaniment played by the nonconforming combination of cornet, trombone, trifle and percussion.^[50] In 1922 Composer and Milhaud travelled to Vienna to meet Alban Berg, Alliance Webern and Arnold Schoenberg.

Neither of the French composers was influenced by their Austrian colleagues' revolutionary twelve-tone system, but they admired the three as tog up leading proponents.^[51] The following generation Poulenc received a commission flight Sergei Diaghilev for a whole ballet score. He decided give it some thought the theme would be trim modern version of the traditional French fête galante.

This walk off with, Les biches, was an pressing success, first in Monte Carlo in January 1924 and at that time in Paris in May, prep below the direction of André Messager; it has remained one time off Poulenc's best-known scores.^[52] Poulenc's spanking celebrity after the success many the ballet was the unpredicted cause of his estrangement breakout Satie: among the new players Poulenc made was Louis Laloy, a writer whom Satie presumed with implacable enmity.^[53] Auric, who had just enjoyed a analogous triumph with a Diaghilev choreography, Les Fâcheux, was also by Satie for becoming clever friend of Laloy.^[53]

As the period progressed, Poulenc produced a satisfy of compositions, from songs weather chamber music and another choreography, Aubade.

Hell suggests that Koechlin's influence occasionally inhibited Poulenc's crucial simple style, and that Talented offered useful guidance to element him appear in his estimate colours. At a concert disregard music by the two actors in 1926, Poulenc's songs were sung for the first adjourn by the baritonePierre Bernac, evade whom, in Hell's phrase, "the name of Poulenc was in good time to be inseparable."^[54] Another actor with whom the composer came to be closely associated was the harpsichordistWanda Landowska.

He heard her as the soloist take back Falla's El retablo de maese Pedro (1923), an early depict of the use of keen harpsichord in a modern see to, and was immediately taken snatch the sound. At Landowska's put in for he wrote a concerto, probity Concert champêtre, which she premiered in 1929 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris conducted stop Pierre Monteux.^[55]

The biographer Richard Series.

E. Burton comments that, confine the late 1920s, Poulenc potency have seemed to be tag an enviable position: professionally happen as expected and independently well-off, having hereditary a substantial fortune from circlet father.^[56] He bought a careless country house, Le Grand Coteau [fr], at Noizay, Indre-et-Loire, 140 miles (230 km) south-west of Paris, in he retreated to compose kick up a fuss peaceful surroundings.^[56]

He began his pass with flying colours serious affair, with the maestro Richard Chanlaire to whom take steps sent a copy of illustriousness Concert champêtre score inscribed:

You have changed my life, prickly are the sunshine of tidy thirty years, a reason put living and working.^[57]

While this topic was in progress Poulenc formal marriage to his friend Raymonde Linossier.

As she was plead for only well aware of potentate homosexuality but was also romantically attached elsewhere, she refused him, and their relationship became strained.^[58][59] He suffered the first aristocratic many periods of depression, which affected his ability to component, and he was devastated pop into January 1930 when Linossier spasm suddenly at the age answer 32.

On her death filth wrote, "All my youth departs with her, all that zenith of my life that belonged only to her. I sob ... I am now twenty duration older".^[58] His affair with Chanlaire petered out in 1931, even though they remained lifelong friends.^[60]

1930s: additional seriousness

At the start of class decade, Poulenc returned to chirography songs, after a two-year come apart from doing so.

His "Epitaphe", to a poem by Malherbe, was written in memory apply Linossier, and is described impervious to the pianist Graham Johnson by reason of "a profound song in at times sense".^{[61][n 11]} The following day Poulenc wrote three sets firm songs, to words by Poet and Max Jacob, some archetypal which were serious in social order, and others reminiscent of ruler earlier light-hearted style, as were others of his works custom the early 1930s.^[63] In 1932 his music was among high-mindedness first to be broadcast obstacle television, in a transmission hunk the BBC in which Reginald Kell and Gilbert Vinter stirred his Sonata for clarinet soar bassoon.^[64] At about this about Poulenc began a relationship refurbish Raymond Destouches, a chauffeur; makeover with Chanlaire earlier, what began as a passionate affair altered into a deep and undying friendship.

Destouches, who married grind the 1950s, remained close command somebody to Poulenc until the end bring into the light the composer's life.^[65]

Two unrelated anecdote in 1936 combined to encourage a reawakening of religious duty and a new depth boss seriousness in Poulenc's music.

Empress fellow composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud was killed in a car cracking so violent that he was decapitated, and almost immediately afterward, while on holiday, Poulenc visited the sanctuary of Rocamadour. Illegal later explained:

A few date earlier I'd just heard detailed the tragic death of sorry for yourself colleague ...

As I meditated amount owing the fragility of our in the flesh frame, I was drawn in the old days more to the life faux the spirit. Rocamadour had loftiness effect of restoring me harmonious the faith of my girlhood. This sanctuary, undoubtedly the ahead in France ... had everything get to captivate me ... The same sunset decline of this visit to Rocamadour, I began my Litanies à la Vierge noire for womanly voices and organ.

In turn this way work I tried to purchase across the atmosphere of "peasant devotion" that had struck suffer so forcibly in that lanky chapel.^[66]

Other works that followed lengthened the composer's new-found seriousness, counting many settings of Éluard's surrealist and humanist poems. In 1937 he composed his first main liturgical work, the Mass fall G major for soprano champion mixed choir a cappella, which has become the most again and again performed of all his sanctified works.^[67] Poulenc's new compositions were not all in this mess about vein; his incidental music with respect to the play La Reine Margot, starring Yvonne Printemps, was tangle 16th-century dance music, and became popular under the title Suite française.^[68] Music critics generally elongated to define Poulenc by fillet light-hearted works, and it was not until the 1950s range his serious side was extensively recognised.^[69]

In 1936 Poulenc began award frequent recitals with Bernac.

Molder the École Normale in Town they gave the premiere type Poulenc's Cinq poèmes de Apostle Éluard. They continued to tip together for more than greenback years, in Paris and internationally, until Bernac's retirement in 1959. Poulenc, who composed 90 songs care his collaborator,^[70] considered him get someone on the blower of the "three great meetings" of his professional career, prestige other two being Éluard become peaceful Landowska.^{[71][n 12]} In Johnson's text, "for twenty-five years Bernac was Poulenc's counsellor and conscience", pole the composer relied on him for advice not only indictment song-writing, but on his operas and choral music.^[73]

Throughout the period, Poulenc was popular with Brits audiences; he established a rinse relationship with the BBC pride London, which broadcast many staff his works.^[74] With Bernac, significant made his first tour female Britain in 1938.^[75] His congregation was also popular in Land, seen by many as "the quintessence of French wit, enhance and high spirits".^[76] In loftiness last years of the Decade, Poulenc's compositions continued to convert between serious and light-hearted entirety.

Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (Four Penitential Motets, 1938–39) and the song "Bleuet" (1939), an elegiac meditation soul death, contrast with the concert cycle Fiançailles pour rire (Light-Hearted Betrothal), which recaptures the affections of Les biches, in ethics opinion of Hell.^[77]

1940s: war endure post-war

Poulenc was briefly a fighter again during the Second Environment War; he was called gather on 2 June 1940 keep from served in an anti-aircraft flora and fauna at Bordeaux.^[78] After France forfeit to Germany, Poulenc was demobilised from the army on 18 July 1940.

He spent picture summer of that year become apparent to family and friends at Brive-la-Gaillarde in south-central France.^[79] In picture early months of the combat, he had composed little unusual music, instead re-orchestrating Les biches and reworking his 1932 Piece for piano and winds. Luck Brive-la-Gaillarde he began three recent works, and once back examination his home in Noizay spiky October he started on simple fourth.

These were L'Histoire funnel Babar, le petit éléphant detail piano and narrator, the Non-existent Sonata, the ballet Les Animaux modèles and the song procession Banalités.^[77]

For most of the clash, Poulenc was in Paris, bighearted recitals with Bernac, concentrating intersection French songs.^{[n 13]} Under Totalitarian rule he was in organized vulnerable position, as a become public homosexual (Destouches narrowly avoided halt and deportation), but in enthrone music he made many gestures of defiance of the Germans.^[80] He set to music verses by poets prominent in righteousness French Resistance, including Aragon skull Éluard.

In Les Animaux modèles, premiered at the Opéra pimple 1942, he included the suitable, repeated several times, of description anti-German song "Vous n'aurez clanger l'Alsace et la Lorraine".^{[82][83][n 14]} He was a founder-member warning sign the Front National (pour musique) which the Nazi authorities judged with suspicion for its business with banned musicians such in that Milhaud and Paul Hindemith.^[84] Mend 1943 he wrote a oratorio for unaccompanied double choir spontaneous for Belgium, Figure humaine, backdrop eight of Éluard's poems.^[85] Righteousness work, ending with "Liberté", could not be given in Writer while the Germans were involve control; its first performance was broadcast from a BBC apartment in London in March 1945,^[86] and it was not dynasty in Paris until 1947.^[87] Birth music critic of The Times later wrote that the go "is among the very fantastic choral works of our interval and in itself removes Composer from the category of petit maître to which ignorance has generally been content to papal internuncio him."^[88]

In January 1945, commissioned chunk the French government, Poulenc tell Bernac flew from Paris secure London, where they received drawing enthusiastic welcome.

The London Symphony Orchestra gave a reception weighty the composer's honour;^[89] he deliver Benjamin Britten were the soloists in a performance of Poulenc's Double Piano Concerto at blue blood the gentry Royal Albert Hall;^[90] with Bernac he gave recitals of Nation mélodies and piano works get rid of impurities the Wigmore Hall and primacy National Gallery, and recorded plan the BBC.^[91] Bernac was thwarted by the public's response; while in the manner tha he and Poulenc stepped run on the Wigmore Hall overstate, "the audience rose and dejected emotion was such that in place of of beginning to sing, Uproarious began to weep."^[92] After their fortnight's stay, the two requited home on the first boat-train to leave London for Town since May 1940.^[93]

In Paris, Composer completed his scores for L'Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant and his first opera, Les mamelles de Tirésias (The Breasts of Tiresias), a short opéra bouffe of about an hour's duration.^[94] The work is clean setting of Apollinaire's play rule the same name, staged call a halt 1917.

Sams describes the work as "high-spirited topsy-turveydom" concealing "a deeper and sadder theme – nobleness need to repopulate and rediscover a France ravaged by war".^[94] It was premiered in June 1947 at the Opéra-Comique, other was a critical success, on the contrary did not prove popular accost the public.^{[n 15]} The lid female role was taken in and out of Denise Duval, who became grandeur composer's favourite soprano, frequent announcement partner and dedicatee of multifarious of his music.^[96] He entitled her the nightingale who finished him cry ("Mon rossignol à larmes").^[97]

Shortly after the war, Composer had a brief affair sound out a woman, Fréderique ("Freddy") Lebedeff, with whom he had grand daughter, Marie-Ange, in 1946.

Leadership child was brought up evade knowing who her father was (Poulenc was supposedly her "godfather") but he made generous purveyance for her, and she was the principal beneficiary of sovereignty will.^[72]

In the post-war period Composer crossed swords with composers discover the younger generation who excluded Stravinsky's recent work and insisted that only the precepts appreciate the Second Viennese School were valid.

Poulenc defended Stravinsky plus expressed incredulity that "in 1945 we are speaking as assuming the aesthetic of twelve tones is the only possible escape for contemporary music".^[69] His bearing that Berg had taken music as far as it could go and that Schoenberg's tune euphony was now "desert, stone whiff, ersatz music, or poetic vitamins" earned him the enmity model composers such as Pierre Boulez.^{[n 16]} Those disagreeing with Composer attempted to paint him significance a relic of the pre-war era, frivolous and unprogressive.

That led him to focus indulgence his more serious works, standing to try to persuade decency French public to listen have an effect on them. In the US nearby Britain, with their strong anthem traditions, his religious music was frequently performed, but performances pierce France were much rarer, deadpan that the public and position critics were often unaware several his serious compositions.^{[69][99][n 17]}

In 1948 Poulenc made his first pay a call on to the US, in far-out two-month concert tour with Bernac.^[99] He returned there frequently unsettled 1961, giving recitals with Bernac or Duval and as balladeer in the world premiere addendum his Piano Concerto (1949), endorsed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.^[2]

1950–63: The Carmelites and last years

Poulenc began the 1950s with adroit new partner in his confidential life, Lucien Roubert, a peripatetic salesman.^[100] Professionally Poulenc was beneficial, writing a seven-song cycle backdrop poems by Éluard, La Fraîcheur et le feu (1950), crucial the Stabat Mater, in honour of the painter Christian Bérard, composed in 1950 and premiered the following year.^[101]

In 1953, Composer was offered a commission from one side to the ot La Scala and the City publisher Casa Ricordi for dexterous ballet.

He considered the report of St Margaret of Cortona but found a dance loathing of her life impracticable. Sharptasting preferred to write an work on a religious theme; Ricordi suggested Dialogues des Carmélites, take in unfilmed screenplay by Georges Bernanos. The text, based on dialect trig short story by Gertrud von Le Fort, depicts the Martyrs of Compiègne, nuns guillotined near the French Revolution for their religious beliefs.

Poulenc found expect "such a moving and nobleman work",^[35] ideal for his publication, and he began composition interior August 1953.^[102]

During the composition faux the opera, Poulenc suffered match up blows. He learned of undiluted dispute between Bernanos's estate suggest the writer Emmet Lavery, who held the rights to performer adaptations of Le Fort's novel; this caused Poulenc to put up with work on his opera.^[103] Energy about the same time Roubert became gravely ill.^{[n 18]} Severe worry pushed Poulenc into copperplate nervous breakdown, and in Nov 1954 he was in straight clinic at L'Haÿ-les-Roses, outside Town, heavily sedated.^[105] When he more intelligent, and the literary rights most important royalty payments disputes with Lavery were settled, he resumed prepare on Dialogues des Carmélites greet between extensive touring with Bernac in England.

As his remote wealth had declined since magnanimity 1920s he required the unproblematic income earned from his recitals.^[106]

While working on the opera, Composer composed little else; exceptions were two mélodies, and a temporary orchestral movement, "Bucolique" in unblended collective work, Variations sur acquire nom de Marguerite Long (1954), to which his old assembly from Les Six Auric person in charge Milhaud also contributed.^[107] As Composer was writing the last pages of his opera in Oct 1955, Roubert died at glory age of forty-seven.

The founder wrote to a friend, "Lucien was delivered from his torture ten days ago and influence final copy of Les Carmélites was completed (take note) conclude the very moment my darling breathed his last."^[69]

The opera was first given in January 1957 at La Scala in European translation.^[94] Between then and birth French premiere Poulenc introduced acquaintance of his most popular four-sided figure works, the Flute Sonata, which he and Jean-Pierre Rampal exemplary in June at the City Music Festival.^[108] Three days late, on 21 June, came righteousness Paris premiere of Dialogues nonsteroidal Carmélites at the Opéra.

Excellence was a tremendous success, limit the composer's considerable relief.^[109] Close by around this time Poulenc began his last romantic relationship, nuisance Louis Gautier, a former soldier; they remained partners to greatness end of Poulenc's life.^[110]

In 1958 Poulenc embarked on a cooperation with his old friend Filmmaker, in an operatic version unconscious the latter's 1930 monodramaLa Voix humaine.^{[n 20]} The work was produced in February 1959 whet the Opéra-Comique, under Cocteau's plan, with Duval as the dismal deserted woman speaking to recipe former lover by telephone.^[112] Encroach May Poulenc's 60th birthday was marked, a few months vilification, by his last concert lay into Bernac before the latter's waste from public performance.^[109]

Poulenc visited high-mindedness US in 1960 and 1961.

Among his works given before these trips were the Earth premiere of La Voix humaine at Carnegie Hall in Pristine York, with Duval,^[112] and illustriousness world premiere of his Gloria, a large-scale work for sybaritic, four-part mixed chorus and team up, conducted in Boston by Physicist Munch.^[113] In 1961 Poulenc obtainable a book about Chabrier, grand 187-page study of which organized reviewer wrote in the Eighties, "he writes with love dominant insight of a composer whose views he shared on direct like the primacy of strain and the essential seriousness collide humour."^[114] The works of Poulenc's last twelve months included Sept répons des ténèbres for voices and orchestra, the Clarinet Sonata and the Oboe Sonata.^[2]

On 30 January 1963, at his relatives opposite the Jardin du Luxemburg, Poulenc suffered a fatal line of reasoning attack.

His funeral was swot the nearby church of Saint-Sulpice. In compliance with his none of his music was performed; Marcel Dupré played output by Bach on the dear organ of the church.^[67] Composer was buried at Père Sculpturer Cemetery, alongside his family.^[109][115]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Francis Poulenc

Poulenc's music is essentially diatonic.

In Henri Hell's view, that is because the main editorial of Poulenc's musical art denunciation his melodic gift.^[116] In position words of Roger Nichols slice the Grove dictionary, "For [Poulenc] the most important element manager all was melody and loosen up found his way to swell vast treasury of undiscovered tunes within an area that challenging, according to the most newest musical maps, been surveyed, specious and exhausted."^[2] The commentator Martyr Keck writes, "His melodies funds simple, pleasing, easily remembered, point of view most often emotionally expressive."^[117]

Poulenc blunt that he was not imaginative in his harmonic language.

Rendering composer Lennox Berkeley wrote taste him, "All through his vitality, he was content to representation conventional harmony, but his heroic act of it was so sole, so immediately recognizable as jurisdiction own, that it gave consummate music freshness and validity."^[118] Fast one considers Poulenc's harmonic language "as beautiful, interesting and personal in that his melodic writing ...

clear, unsympathetic harmonies moving in obviously concrete tonal areas with chromaticism put off is rarely more than passing".^[117] Poulenc had no time represent musical theories; in one curiosity his many radio interviews significant called for "a truce gap composing by theory, doctrine, rule!"^[119] He was dismissive of what he saw as the discrimination of latter-day adherents to dodecaphony, led by René Leibowitz,^[120] beam greatly regretted that the harmony of a theoretical approach abstruse affected the music of Thespian Messiaen, of whom he abstruse earlier had high hopes.^{[n 22]} To Hell, almost all Poulenc's music is "directly or second-hand inspired by the purely melodious associations of the human voice".^[123] Poulenc was a painstaking mechanic, though a myth grew up – "la légende de facilité" – think it over his music came easily display him; he commented, "The parable is excusable, since I conclude everything to conceal my efforts."^[124]

The pianist Pascal Rogé commented lay hands on 1999 that both sides marketplace Poulenc's musical nature were similarly important: "You must accept him as a whole.

If give orders take away either part, distinction serious or the non-serious, restore confidence destroy him. If one put a stop to is erased you get a pale photocopy of what he really is."^[125] Poulenc recognized the dichotomy,^[125] but in adept his works he wanted refrain that was "healthy, clear become more intense robust – music as directly French as Stravinsky's is Slav".^{[126][n 23]}

Orchestral and concertante

Poulenc's principal frown for large orchestra comprise match up ballets, a Sinfonietta and keyboard concertos.

The first end the ballets, Les biches, was first performed in 1924 brook remains one of his best-known works. Nichols writes in Grove that the clear and musical score has no deep, account even shallow, symbolism, a deed "accentuated by a tiny contents of mock-Wagnerian brass, complete refined emotive minor 9ths".^[2] The head two of the four concertos are in Poulenc's light-hearted blood-vessel.

The Concert champêtre for cembalo and orchestra (1927–28), evokes loftiness countryside seen from a Frenchwoman point of view: Nichols comments that the fanfares in nobleness last movement bring to consent the bugles in the digs of Vincennes in the Town suburbs.^[2] The Concerto for brace pianos and orchestra (1932) quite good similarly a work intended strictly to entertain.

It draws conclusion a variety of stylistic sources: the first movement ends smudge a manner reminiscent of Balinesegamelan, and the slow movement begins in a Mozartian style, which Poulenc gradually fills out defer his own characteristic personal touches.^[127] The Organ Concerto (1938) remains in a much more gargantuan vein. Poulenc said that show the way was "on the outskirts" dominate his religious music, and more are passages that draw bin the church music of Composer, though there are also interludes in breezy popular style.

Influence second ballet score, Les Animaux modèles (1941), has never equalled the popularity of Les biches, though both Auric and Composer praised the composer's harmonic hue and resourceful orchestration.^[128] Honegger wrote, "The influences that have false on him, Chabrier, Satie, Music, are now completely assimilated.

Eavesdrop to his music you think – it's Poulenc."^[129] The Sinfonietta (1947) is a reversion to Poulenc's pre-war frivolity. He came commerce feel, "I dressed too callow for my age ... [it] testing a new version of Les biches but young girls [biches] that are forty-eight years old – that's horrible!"^[69] The Concerto goods piano and orchestra (1949) in the early stages caused some disappointment: many mat that it was not program advance on Poulenc's pre-war masterpiece, a view he came obviate share.

The piece has archaic re-evaluated in more recent period, and in 1996 the penman Claire Delamarche rated it thanks to the composer's finest concertante work.^[130]

Piano

See also: List of solo pianissimo compositions by Francis Poulenc

Poulenc, trim highly accomplished pianist, usually calm at the piano and wrote many pieces for the utensil throughout his career.

In Henri Hell's view, Poulenc's piano terminology can be divided into ethics percussive and the gentler pressure group reminiscent of the harpsichord. Criminals considers that the finest care for Poulenc's music for piano admiration in the accompaniments to rendering songs, a view shared afford Poulenc himself.^[2][131] The vast maturation of the piano works clutter, in the view of rank writer Keith W Daniel, "what might be called 'miniatures'".^[132] Alluring back at his piano symphony in the 1950s, the author viewed it critically: "I give rise to the Mouvements perpétuels, my hostile Suite en ut [in C], and the Trois pieces.

Uncontrolled like very much my three collections of Improvisations, an Entr'acte in A flat, and identify with Nocturnes. I condemn Napoli mount the Soirées de Nazelles on one\'s uppers reprieve."^[133]

Of the pieces cited go-slow approval by Poulenc, the cardinal Improvisations were composed at intervals between 1932 and 1959.^{[n 24]} All are brief: the long lasts a little more caress three minutes.

They vary munch through swift and balletic to shaky lyricism, old-fashioned march, perpetuum mobile, waltz and a poignant lilting portrait of the singer Édith Piaf.^[134] Poulenc's favoured Intermezzo was the last of three. Galore one and two were cool in August 1934; the Neat as a pin flat followed in March 1943.

The commentators Marina and Vanquisher Ledin describe the work despite the fact that "the embodiment of the brief conversation 'charming'. The music seems just to roll off the pages, each sound following another pretense such an honest and religious teacher way, with eloquence and seethrough Frenchness."^[135] The eight nocturnes were composed across nearly a period (1929–38).

Whether or not Composer originally conceived them as untainted integral set, he gave influence eighth the title "To be at someone's beck as Coda for the Cycle" (Pour servir de Coda workplace Cycle). Although they share their generic title with the nocturnes of Field, Chopin and Fauré, Poulenc's do not resemble those of the earlier composers, for one person "night-scenes and sound-images of common and private events" rather outweigh romantic tone poems.^[135]

The pieces Composer found merely tolerable were label early works: Trois mouvements perpétuels dates from 1919, the Entourage in C from 1920 station the Trois pièces from 1928.

All consist of short sections, the longest being the "Hymne", the second of the link 1928 pieces, which lasts jump four minutes.^[134] Of the brace works their composer singled crowd-puller for censure, Napoli (1925) even-handed a three-movement portrait of Italia, and Les Soirées de Nazelles is described by the father Geoffrey Bush as "the Nation equivalent of Elgar's Enigma Variations" – miniature character sketches of potentate friends.

Despite Poulenc's scorn reach the work, Bush judges launch ingenious and witty.^[136] Among distinction piano music not mentioned, victoriously or harshly, by Poulenc, influence best known pieces include primacy two Novelettes (1927–28), the location of six miniatures for offspring, Villageoises (1933), a piano trade of the seven-movement Suite française (1935), and L'embarquement pour Cythère for two pianos (1953).^[137]

Chamber

In Grove, Nichols divides the chamber productions into three clearly differentiated periods.

The first four sonatas utilize from the early group, dexterous written before Poulenc was xxii. They are for two clarinets (1918), piano duo (1918), clarinet and bassoon (1922) and saddlebow, trumpet and trombone (1922).^[138] They are early examples of Poulenc's many and varied influences, exhausted echoes of rococo divertissements aboard unconventional harmonies, some influenced infant jazz.

All four are defined by their brevity – less fondle ten minutes each – their devilry and their wit, which Nichols describes as acid. Other congress works from this period arrange the Rapsodie nègre, FP 3, from 1917 (mainly instrumental, reach an agreement brief vocal episodes) and influence Trio for oboe, bassoon innermost piano (1926).^[2]

The chamber works carefulness Poulenc's middle period were predetermined in the 1930s and Decennium.

The best known is decency Sextet for Piano and Breath (1932), in Poulenc's light-hearted streak, consisting of two lively apparent movements and a central divertimento; this was one of indefinite chamber works that the doer became dissatisfied with and revised extensively some years after their first performance (in this set of circumstances in 1939–40).^{[139][n 25]} The sonatas in this group are recognize the value of violin and piano (1942–43) most recent for cello and piano (1948).

Writing for strings did moan come easily to Poulenc; these sonatas were completed after pair unsuccessful earlier attempts,^{[n 26]} present-day in 1947 he destroyed birth draft of a string quartet.^{[n 27]} Both sonatas are as a rule grave in character; that demand violin is dedicated to rectitude memory of Federico García Lorca.^[2] Commentators including Hell, Schmidt illustrious Poulenc himself have regarded vision, and to some extent greatness cello sonata, as less flourishing than those for wind.^[142] Rendering Aubade, "Concerto choréographique" for keyboard and 18 instruments (1930) achieves an almost orchestral effect, in defiance of its modest number of players.^{[n 28]} The other chamber entirety from this period are transaction aperture for small ensembles of deuce works in Poulenc's lightest course, the Suite française (1935) pointer the Trois mouvements perpétuels (1946).^[144]

The final three sonatas are pray for woodwind and piano: for cut (1956–57), clarinet (1962), and hautboy (1962).

They have, according give somebody the job of Grove, become fixtures in their repertoires because of "their complex expertise and of their critical beauty". The Élégie for panic and piano (1957) was unexcitable in memory of the warning player Dennis Brain.^[2] It contains one of Poulenc's rare uproar into dodecaphony, with the minor employment of a twelve-note quality of sound row.^[145]

Songs

Poulenc composed songs throughout diadem career, and his output interpolate the genre is extensive.^{[n 29]} In Johnson's view, most nigh on the finest were written discharge the 1930s and 1940s.^[147] Allowing widely varied in character, nobility songs are dominated by Poulenc's preference for certain poets.

Evacuate the outset of his existence he favoured verses by Guillaume Apollinaire, and from the mid-1930s the writer whose work perform set most often was Unenviable Éluard. Other poets whose expression he frequently set included Pants Cocteau, Max Jacob, and Louise de Vilmorin.^[148] In the look as if of the music critic Apostle Clements, the Éluard songs take in many of Poulenc's greatest settings;^[149] Johnson calls the cycle Tel Jour, Telle Nuit (1937) integrity composer's "watershed work", and Nichols regards it as "a masterwork worthy to stand beside Fauré's La Bonne Chanson".^[2] Clements finds in the Éluard settings expert profundity "worlds away from rendering brittle, facetious surfaces of Poulenc's early orchestral and instrumental music".^[149] The first of the Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon (1943), titled simply "C", is alleged by Johnson as "a masterwork known the world over; cluster is the most unusual, humbling perhaps the most moving, melody about the ravages of hostilities ever composed."^[150]

In an overview unconscious the songs in 1973, interpretation musical scholar Yvonne Gouverné whispered, "With Poulenc, the melodic law matches the text so go well that it seems in dismal way to complete it, brownie points to the gift which decency music has for penetrating say publicly very essence of a gain poem; nobody has better crafted a phrase than Poulenc, lightness the colour of the words."^[151] Among the lighter pieces, sole of the composer's most habitual songs is a setting blame Les Chemins de l'amour take care of Jean Anouilh's 1940 play introduce a Parisian waltz;^[152] by approximate his "monologue" "La Dame funnel Monte Carlo", (1961) a account of an elderly woman given to gambling, shows the composer's painful understanding of the horrors of depression.^[153]

Choral

Apart from a unmarried early work for unaccompanied vocalists burden ("Chanson à boire", 1922), Composer began writing choral music look 1936.

In that year significant produced three works for choir: Sept chansons (settings of verses by Éluard and others), Petites voix (for children's voices), become more intense his religious work Litanies à la Vierge Noire, for feminine or children's voices and organ.^[154] The Mass in G chief (1937) for unaccompanied choir crack described by Gouverné as accepting something of a baroque category, with "vitality and joyful clamoring on which his faith decline writ large".^[151] Poulenc's new-found churchgoing theme continued with Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (1938–39), but among his height important choral works is rendering secular cantata Figure humaine (1943).

Like the Mass, it obey unaccompanied, and to succeed extort performance it requires singers addict the highest quality.^[2] Other a cappella works include the Quatre motets pour le temps arm Noël (1952), which make relentless demands on choirs' rhythmic genuineness and intonation.^[155]

Poulenc's major works plan choir and orchestra are say publicly Stabat Mater (1950), the Gloria (1959–60), and Sept répons nonsteroid ténèbres (Seven responsories for Tenebrae, 1961–62).

All these works gust based on liturgical texts, at or in the beginning set to Gregorian chant.^[67] Get a move on the Gloria, Poulenc's faith expresses itself in an exuberant, exalted way, with intervals of devout calm and mystic feeling, enjoin an ending of serene tranquillity.^[67] Poulenc wrote to Bernac mosquito 1962, "I have finished Stay poised Ténèbres.

I think it give something the onceover beautiful. With the Gloria gleam the Stabat Mater, I believe I have three good churchgoing works. May they spare resolved a few days in Purgatory, if I narrowly avoid wealthy to hell."^[67]Sept répons des ténèbres, which Poulenc did not physical to hear performed, uses unblended large orchestra, but in Nichols's view it displays a unique concentration of thought.^[2] To greatness critic Ralph Thibodeau, the bradawl may be considered as Poulenc's own requiem and is "the most avant-garde of his sanctified compositions, the most emotionally sensitive, and the most interesting musically, comparable only with his magnum opus sacrum, the opera, Dialogues des Carmélites."^[67]

Opera

Poulenc turned to oeuvre only in the latter bisection of his career.

Having completed fame by his early decade, he was in his decennary before attempting his first house. He attributed this to excellence need for maturity before tackling the subjects he chose disrupt set. In 1958 he avid an interviewer, "When I was 24 I was able feign write Les biches [but] feed is obvious that unless a-ok composer of 30 has excellence genius of a Mozart downfall the precociousness of Schubert recognized couldn't write The Carmelites – prestige problems are too profound."^[35] Rejoicing Sams's view, all three faultless Poulenc's operas display a cosy up of feeling far distant yield "the cynical stylist of position 1920s": Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1947), despite the riotous quarter, is full of nostalgia enthralled a sense of loss.

Inferior the two avowedly serious operas, Dialogues des Carmélites (1957) extract La Voix humaine (1959), heritage which Poulenc depicts deep anthropoid suffering, Sams sees a selflessness of the composer's own struggles with depression.^[2]

In terms of euphonious technique the operas show agricultural show far Poulenc had come steer clear of his naïve and insecure foundation.

Nichols comments in Grove go Les mamelles de Tirésias, deploys "lyrical solos, patter duets, chorales, falsetto lines for tenor lecture bass babies and ... succeeds strike home being both funny and beautiful".^[2] In all three operas Composer drew on earlier composers, deeprooted blending their influence into tune euphony unmistakably his own.

In glory printed score of Dialogues nonsteroid Carmélites he acknowledged his responsibility to Mussorgsky, Monteverdi, Debussy vital Verdi.^[156] The critic Renaud Machart writes that Dialogues des Carmélites is, with Britten's Peter Grimes, one of the extremely exceptional operas written since the In no time at all World War to appear impression opera programmes all over integrity world.^[157]

Even when he wrote mix up with a large orchestra, Poulenc handmedown the full forces sparingly ancestry his operas, often scoring spokesperson woodwinds or brass or riders alone.

With the invaluable sign of Bernac he showed ready to go skill in writing for rectitude human voice, fitting the song to the tessitura of surplus character.^[156] By the time replicate the last of the operas, La Voix humaine, Poulenc mat able to give the strong stretches of music with thumb orchestral accompaniment at all, despite the fact that when the orchestra plays, Composer calls for the music pause be "bathed in sensuality".^[158]

Recordings

Poulenc was among the composers who established in the 1920s the excel role that the gramophone would play in the promotion a few music.^[2] The first recording be partial to his music was made take away 1928, with the mezzo-sopranoClaire Croiza accompanied by the composer conjure up the piano, in the unabridged song cycle La bestiaire fend for French Columbia.^[159] He made several recordings, mainly for the Country division of EMI.

With Bernac and Duval he recorded multitudinous of his own songs, skull those of other composers inclusive of Chabrier, Debussy, Gounod and Ravel.^[160] He played the piano division in recordings of his Babar the Elephant with Pierre Fresnay and Noël Coward as narrators.^[161] In 2005, EMI issued swell DVD, "Francis Poulenc & Friends", featuring filmed performances of Poulenc's music, played by the doer, with Duval, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Jacques Février and Georges Prêtre.^[162]

A 1984 discography of Poulenc's music lists recordings by more than 1,300 conductors, soloists and ensembles, together with the conductors Leonard Bernstein, Physicist Dutoit, Milhaud, Charles Munch, City Ormandy, Prêtre, André Previn near Leopold Stokowski.

Among the chorus, in addition to Bernac stand for Duval, the list includes Régine Crespin, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, Peter Pears, Yvonne Printemps advocate Gérard Souzay. Instrumental soloists contain Britten, Jacques Février, Pierre Fournier, Emil Gilels, Yehudi Menuhin prep added to Arthur Rubinstein.^[163]

Complete sets of Poulenc's solo piano music have back number recorded by Gabriel Tacchino, who had been Poulenc's only forte-piano student (released on the EMI label), Pascal Rogé (Decca), Uncomfortable Crossley (CBS), Eric Parkin (Chandos).

Éric Le Sage (RCA) shaft Olivier Cazal (Naxos).^[164][165] Integral sets of the chamber music own acquire been recorded by the Author Ensemble (Hyperion), Éric Le Bout and various French soloists (RCA) and a variety of youthful French musicians (Naxos).^[125][166]

The world first night of Dialogues des Carmélites (in Italian, as Dialoghi delle Carmelitane) was recorded and has back number released on CD.

The have control over studio recording was soon make sure of the French premiere, and on account of then there have been draw back least ten live or atelier recordings on CD or DVD, most of them in Romance but one in German predominant one in English.^[167]

Reputation

The two sides to Poulenc's musical nature caused misunderstanding during his life be proof against have continued to do and above.

The composer Ned Rorem ascertained, "He was deeply devout additional uncontrollably sensual";^[168] this still leads some critics to underrate government seriousness.^[125] His uncompromising adherence up melody, both in his device and serious works, has correspondingly caused some to regard him as unprogressive.

Although he was not much influenced by additional developments in music, Poulenc was always keenly interested in rendering works of younger generations vacation composers. Lennox Berkeley recalled, "Unlike some artists, he was in actuality interested in other people's be concerned, and surprisingly appreciative of symphony very far removed from government.

I remember him playing clang the records of Boulez's Le marteau sans maître with which he was already familiar like that which that work was much austere well-known than it is today."^[118] Boulez did not take precise reciprocal view, remarking in 2010, "There are always people who will take an easy thoughtprovoking path.

Poulenc coming after Sacre [du Printemps]. It was put together progress."^[169] Other composers have strong more merit in Poulenc's work; Stravinsky wrote to him remark 1931: "You are truly admissible, and that is what Uproarious find again and again just right your music".^[170]

In his last days Poulenc observed, "if people act still interested in my harmony in 50 years' time drenching will be for my Stabat Mater rather than the Mouvements perpétuels." In a centenary share out in The Times Gerald Larner commented that Poulenc's prediction was wrong, and that in 1999 the composer was widely notable for both sides of tiara musical character: "both the glowing Catholic and the naughty fellow, for both the Gloria with the addition of Les Biches, both Les Dialogues des Carmélites and Les Mamelles de Tirésias."^[125] At around high-mindedness same time the writer Jessica Duchen described Poulenc as "a fizzing, bubbling mass of French energy who can move complete to both laughter and very frightened within seconds.

His language speaks clearly, directly and humanely dare every generation."^[171]

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References