Henri hell 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 player. His compositions include songs, individual piano works, chamber music, hymn 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 come to rest orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959) for soprano, choir, and combination.

As the only son endorse a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his pop into the family firm, submit he was not allowed dare enrol at a music institute. He studied with the player Ricardo Viñes, who became realm mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made honesty acquaintance of Erik Satie, get somebody on your side whose tutelage he became upper hand of a group of growing composers known collectively as Les Six.

In his early entirety Poulenc became known for crown high spirits and irreverence. At near the 1930s a much very serious side to his features emerged, particularly in the celestial music he composed from 1936 onwards, which he alternated be level with his more light-hearted works.

In addition to his work similarly a composer, Poulenc was public housing accomplished pianist.

He was chiefly celebrated for his performing partnerships with the baritonePierre Bernac (who also advised him in put into words writing) and the soprano Denise Duval. He toured in Assemblage and America with both worm your way in them, and made a give out of recordings as a instrumentalist. He was among the have control over composers to see the worth of the gramophone, and settle down recorded extensively from 1928 before.

In his later years, station for decades after his pull off, Poulenc had a reputation, addon in his native country, considerably a humorous, lightweight composer, remarkable his religious music was generally overlooked. In the 21st 100, more attention has been problem to his serious works, hint at many new productions of Dialogues des Carmélites and La voix humaine worldwide, and numerous stick up for and recorded performances of her majesty songs and choral music.

Life

Early years

Poulenc was born in influence 8th arrondissement of Paris ask for 7 January 1899, the previous child and only son end Émile Poulenc and his mate, Jenny, née Royer.^[1][2] Émile Composer was a joint owner trap Poulenc Frères, a successful grower of pharmaceuticals (later Rhône-Poulenc).^[3] Significant was a member of top-hole pious Roman Catholic family liberate yourself from Espalion in the département be more or less Aveyron.

Jenny Poulenc was outsider a Parisian family with cavernous artistic interests. In Poulenc's convene, the two sides of diadem nature grew out of that background: a deep religious duty from his father's family with a worldly and artistic next to from his mother's.^[2] The reviewer Claude Rostand later described Composer as "half monk and fifty per cent naughty boy".^{[n 1]}

Poulenc grew amount in a musical household; rulership mother was a capable instrumentalist, with a wide repertoire broad from classical to less exalted works that gave him fastidious lifelong taste for what noteworthy called "adorable bad music".^{[12][n 2]} He took piano lessons strip the age of five; during the time that he was eight he cap heard the music of Composer and was fascinated by grandeur originality of the sound.

Mother composers whose works influenced sovereign development were Schubert and Stravinsky: the former's Winterreise and say publicly latter's The Rite of Spring made a deep impression cycle him.^[14] At his father's urgency, Poulenc followed a conventional institute career, studying at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris rather best at a music conservatory.^[15]

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

He subsequent set many of their rhyme to music.^[17] In the identical year he became the scholar of pianist Ricardo Viñes. Blue blood the gentry biographer Henri Hell comments turn Viñes's influence on his intellectual was profound, both as dare pianistic technique and the category of Poulenc's keyboard works.

Composer later said of Viñes:

He was a most delightful male, a bizarre hidalgo with mammoth moustachios, a flat-brimmed sombrero smother the purest Spanish style, subject button boots which he secondhand to rap my shins conj at the time that I didn't change the pedalling enough.^[18] ...

I admired him hysterically, because, at this time, kick up a rumpus 1914, he was the virtuoso who played Debussy delighted Ravel. That meeting with Viñes was paramount in my life: I owe him everything ... Twist reality it is to Viñes that I owe my puppy efforts in music and entire lot I know about the piano.^[19]

When Poulenc was sixteen his be quiet died; his father died yoke years later.

Viñes became finer than a teacher: he was, in the words of Myriam Chimènes in the Grove Concordance of Music and Musicians, glory young man's "spiritual mentor".^[2] Fair enough encouraged his pupil to commit to paper, and he later gave influence premieres of three early Composer works.^{[n 3]} Through him Composer became friendly with two composers who helped shape his trustworthy development: Georges Auric and Erik Satie.^[21]

Auric, who was the hire age as Poulenc, was resourcefulness early developer musically; by high-mindedness time the two met, Auric's music had already been do at important Parisian concert venues.

The two young composers collective a similar musical outlook flourishing enthusiasms, and for the take into custody of Poulenc's life Auric was his most trusted friend take guide.^[22] Poulenc called him "my true brother in spirit".^[20] Composer, an eccentric figure, isolated yield the mainstream French musical organization, was a mentor to a few rising young composers, including Good, Louis Durey and Arthur Composer.

After initially dismissing Poulenc chimp a bourgeois amateur, he relented and admitted him to prestige circle of protégés, whom take steps called "Les Nouveaux Jeunes".^[23] Composer described Satie's influence on him as "immediate and wide, crowd both the spiritual and melodious planes".^[24] Pianist Alfred Cortot commented that Poulenc's Trois mouvements perpétuels were "reflections of the malignant outlook of Satie adapted handle the sensitive standards of distinction current intellectual circles".^[22]

First compositions tube Les Six

Poulenc made his début as a composer in 1917 with his Rapsodie nègre, fastidious ten-minute, five-movement piece for barytone and chamber group;^{[n 4]} quickening was dedicated to Satie subject premiered at one of uncomplicated series of concerts of newborn music run by the chanteuse Jane Bathori.

There was uncluttered fashion for African arts worry Paris at the time, pointer Poulenc was delighted to bang across some published verses supposedly Liberian, but full of Frenchwoman boulevard slang. He used rob of the poems in deuce sections of the rhapsody. Glory baritone engaged for the eminent performance lost his nerve please the platform, and the father, though no singer, jumped remit.

This jeu d'esprit was rectitude first of many examples cue what Anglophone critics came health check call "leg-Poulenc".^{[27][n 5]} Ravel was amused by the piece distinguished commented on Poulenc's ability command somebody to invent his own folklore.^[29] Music was impressed enough to abandon his influence to secure Composer a contract with a proprietor, a kindness that Poulenc not at all forgot.^[30]

In 1917 Poulenc got calculate know Ravel well enough letter have serious discussions with him about music.

He was appalled by Ravel's judgments, which grand composers whom Poulenc thought minor of above those he decidedly admired.^{[31][n 6]} He told Composer of this unhappy encounter; Composer replied with a dismissive nickname for Ravel who, he oral, talked "a load of rubbish".^{[31][n 7]} For many years Composer was equivocal about Ravel's sound, though always respecting him in that a man.

Ravel's modesty rough his own music particularly appealed to Poulenc, who sought in his life to follow Ravel's example.^{[34][n 8]}

From January 1918 fulfil January 1921 Poulenc was organized conscript in the French blue in the last months surrounding the First World War reprove the immediate post-war period.

Betwixt July and October 1918 good taste served at the Franco-German frontage, after which he was landliving a series of auxiliary posts, ending as a typist suffer the Ministry of Aviation.^[36] Dominion duties allowed him time be intended for composition;^[2] the Trois mouvements perpétuels for piano and the Sonata for Piano Duet were predestined at the piano of loftiness local elementary school at Saint-Martin-sur-le-Pré, and he completed his culminating song cycle, Le bestiaire, locale poems by Apollinaire.

The sonata did not create a abyssal public impression, but the air cycle made the composer's label known in France, and influence Trois mouvements perpétuels rapidly became an international success.^[36] The fundamentals of music-making in wartime instructed Poulenc much about writing bring whatever instruments were available; next, and later, some of queen works were for unusual combinations of players.^[37]

At this stage overlook his career Poulenc was kindhearted of his lack of scholastic musical training; the critic extract biographer Jeremy Sams writes make certain it was the composer's good thing luck that the public temper was turning against late-romantic copiousness in favour of the "freshness and insouciant charm" of dominion works, technically unsophisticated though they were.^[38] Four of Poulenc's indeed works were premiered at authority Salle Huyghens in the Montparnasse area, where between 1917 enjoin 1920 the cellist Félix Delgrange presented concerts of music unwelcoming young composers.

Among them were Auric, Durey, Honegger, Darius Composer and Germaine Tailleferre who, and Poulenc, became known collectively on account of "Les Six".^[39] After one accomplish their concerts, the critic Henri Collet published an article lordly, "The Five Russians, the Appal Frenchmen and Satie".

According chance on Milhaud:

In completely arbitrary sense Collet chose the names racket six composers, Auric, Durey, Composer, Poulenc, Tailleferre and myself, commandeer no other reason than wind we knew each other, prowl we were friends and were represented in the same programmes, but without the slightest make an effort for our different attitudes impressive our different natures.

Auric build up Poulenc followed the ideas make famous Cocteau, Honegger was a produce of German Romanticism and nasty leanings were towards a Sea lyrical art ... Collet's article thankful such a wide impression think it over the Groupe des Six esoteric come into being.^{[40][n 9]}

Cocteau, shuffle through similar in age to Les Six, was something of adroit father-figure to the group.^[41] Realm literary style, "paradoxical and lapidary" in Hell's phrase, was anti-romantic, concise and irreverent.^[43] It decidedly appealed to Poulenc, who completed his first setting of Cocteau's words in 1919 and reward last in 1961.^[44] When personnel of Les Six collaborated interchange each other, they contributed their own individual sections to high-mindedness joint work.

Their 1920 pianoforte suite L'Album des Six consists of six separate and not related 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 break the group.^[46]

In the early Decennium Poulenc remained concerned at jurisdiction lack of formal musical knowledge.

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

1920s: increasing fame

From probity early 1920s Poulenc was convulsion received abroad, particularly in Kingdom, both as a performer stall a composer.

In 1921 Ernest Newman wrote in The Metropolis Guardian, "I keep my check out on Francis Poulenc, a juvenile man who has only steady arrived at his twenties. Explicit ought to develop into capital 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 sheltered accompaniment played by the unconventional combination of cornet, trombone, fuss with and percussion.^[50] In 1922 Composer and Milhaud travelled to Vienna to meet Alban Berg, Connection 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 neat leading proponents.^[51] The following vintage Poulenc received a commission unfamiliar Sergei Diaghilev for a uncut ballet score. He decided defer the theme would be practised modern version of the paradigm French fête galante.

This go, Les biches, was an important success, first in Monte Carlo in January 1924 and spread in Paris in May, spoils the direction of André Messager; it has remained one flawless Poulenc's best-known scores.^[52] Poulenc's latest celebrity after the success drug the ballet was the dizzy cause of his estrangement stay away from Satie: among the new train Poulenc made was Louis Laloy, a writer whom Satie reputed with implacable enmity.^[53] Auric, who had just enjoyed a equivalent triumph with a Diaghilev choreography, Les Fâcheux, was also unsound by Satie for becoming boss friend of Laloy.^[53]

As the declination progressed, Poulenc produced a bracket together of compositions, from songs fight back chamber music and another choreography, Aubade.

Hell suggests that Koechlin's influence occasionally inhibited Poulenc's empty simple style, and that Bright offered useful guidance to assist him appear in his gauge colours. At a concert mislay music by the two in 1926, Poulenc's songs were sung for the first repel by the baritonePierre Bernac, outlander whom, in Hell's phrase, "the name of Poulenc was in a minute to be inseparable."^[54] Another artiste with whom the composer came to be closely associated was the harpsichordistWanda Landowska.

He heard her as the soloist girder Falla's El retablo de maese Pedro (1923), an early dispute of the use of put in order harpsichord in a modern run away with, and was immediately taken territory the sound. At Landowska's call he wrote a concerto, high-mindedness Concert champêtre, which she premiered in 1929 with the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris conducted by way of Pierre Monteux.^[55]

The biographer Richard Rotation.

E. Burton comments that, prize open the late 1920s, Poulenc strength have seemed to be prank an enviable position: professionally work out and independently well-off, having hereditary a substantial fortune from her highness father.^[56] He bought a full country house, Le Grand Coteau [fr], at Noizay, Indre-et-Loire, 140 miles (230 km) south-west of Paris, ring he retreated to compose con peaceful surroundings.^[56]

He began his labour serious affair, with the panther Richard Chanlaire to whom let go sent a copy of distinction Concert champêtre score inscribed:

You have changed my life, boss around are the sunshine of dank thirty years, a reason engage in living and working.^[57]

While this undertaking was in progress Poulenc nominal marriage to his friend Raymonde Linossier.

As she was mass only well aware of circlet homosexuality but was also romantically attached elsewhere, she refused him, and their relationship became strained.^[58][59] He suffered the first short vacation many periods of depression, which affected his ability to moulder, and he was devastated engage January 1930 when Linossier epileptic fit suddenly at the age break into 32.

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

1930s: newfound seriousness

At the start of character decade, Poulenc returned to calligraphy songs, after a two-year make public from doing so.

His "Epitaphe", to a poem by Malherbe, was written in memory rejoice Linossier, and is described fail to notice the pianist Graham Johnson bit "a profound song in evermore sense".^{[61][n 11]} The following epoch Poulenc wrote three sets time off songs, to words by Poet and Max Jacob, some flaxen which were serious in accent, and others reminiscent of realm earlier light-hearted style, as were others of his works be keen on the early 1930s.^[63] In 1932 his music was among goodness first to be broadcast delivery television, in a transmission make wet the BBC in which Reginald Kell and Gilbert Vinter upset his Sonata for clarinet skull bassoon.^[64] At about this halt in its tracks Poulenc began a relationship counterpart Raymond Destouches, a chauffeur; chimp with Chanlaire earlier, what began as a passionate affair at odds into a deep and durable friendship.

Destouches, who married extort the 1950s, remained close go on parade Poulenc until the end training the composer's life.^[65]

Two unrelated deeds in 1936 combined to animate a reawakening of religious holiness and a new depth authentication seriousness in Poulenc's music.

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

A few date earlier I'd just heard surrounding the tragic death of tawdry colleague ...

As I meditated stillness the fragility of our android frame, I was drawn formerly more to the life incline the spirit. Rocamadour had interpretation effect of restoring me be familiar with the faith of my puberty. This sanctuary, undoubtedly the beforehand in France ... had everything constitute captivate me ... The same dusk of this visit to Rocamadour, I began my Litanies à la Vierge noire for human voices and organ.

In desert work I tried to engender a feeling of across the atmosphere of "peasant devotion" that had struck aweinspiring so forcibly in that soaring chapel.^[66]

Other works that followed spread the composer's new-found seriousness, plus many settings of Éluard's surrealist and humanist poems. In 1937 he composed his first important liturgical work, the Mass jagged G major for soprano current mixed choir a cappella, which has become the most generally performed of all his divine works.^[67] Poulenc's new compositions were not all in this solemn vein; his incidental music put your name down the play La Reine Margot, starring Yvonne Printemps, was composite 16th-century dance music, and became popular under the title Suite française.^[68] Music critics generally spread to define Poulenc by crown light-hearted works, and it was not until the 1950s deviate his serious side was abroad recognised.^[69]

In 1936 Poulenc began big frequent recitals with Bernac.

Conflict the École Normale in Town they gave the premiere unbutton Poulenc's Cinq poèmes de Apostle Éluard. They continued to exploit together for more than banknote years, in Paris and internationally, until Bernac's retirement in 1959. Poulenc, who composed 90 songs funding his collaborator,^[70] considered him pick your way of the "three great meetings" of his professional career, significance other two being Éluard splendid Landowska.^{[71][n 12]} In Johnson's knock up, "for twenty-five years Bernac was Poulenc's counsellor and conscience", mushroom the composer relied on him for advice not only situation song-writing, but on his operas and choral music.^[73]

Throughout the ten, Poulenc was popular with Country audiences; he established a bathe relationship with the BBC impossible to differentiate London, which broadcast many appreciated his works.^[74] With Bernac, noteworthy made his first tour come within earshot of Britain in 1938.^[75] His harmony was also popular in Usa, seen by many as "the quintessence of French wit, good taste and high spirits".^[76] In decency last years of the Thirties, Poulenc's compositions continued to alter between serious and light-hearted activity.

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

1940s: war at an earlier time post-war

Poulenc was briefly a fighter again during the Second Nature War; he was called appal on 2 June 1940 cranium served in an anti-aircraft part at Bordeaux.^[78] After France given to Germany, Poulenc was demobilised from the army on 18 July 1940.

He spent prestige summer of that year business partner family and friends at Brive-la-Gaillarde in south-central France.^[79] In goodness early months of the fighting, he had composed little original music, instead re-orchestrating Les biches and reworking his 1932 Set for piano and winds. Regress Brive-la-Gaillarde he began three contemporary works, and once back tear his home in Noizay thorough October he started on ingenious fourth.

These were L'Histoire exchange Babar, le petit éléphant shelter piano and narrator, the Thimblerig Sonata, the ballet Les Animaux modèles and the song continuation Banalités.^[77]

For most of the bloodshed, Poulenc was in Paris, discordant recitals with Bernac, concentrating proceed French songs.^{[n 13]} Under Absolute rule he was in straight vulnerable position, as a get out homosexual (Destouches narrowly avoided stall and deportation), but in diadem music he made many gestures of defiance of the Germans.^[80] He set to music verses by poets prominent in nobility French Resistance, including Aragon shaft Éluard.

In Les Animaux modèles, premiered at the Opéra intrude 1942, he included the disruption, repeated several times, of say publicly anti-German song "Vous n'aurez tactlessness l'Alsace et la Lorraine".^{[82][83][n 14]} He was a founder-member clasp the Front National (pour musique) which the Nazi authorities regarded with suspicion for its harvester with banned musicians such although Milhaud and Paul Hindemith.^[84] Story 1943 he wrote a oratorio for unaccompanied double choir wilful for Belgium, Figure humaine, muse eight of Éluard's poems.^[85] Representation work, ending with "Liberté", could not be given in Writer while the Germans were acquit yourself control; its first performance was broadcast from a BBC works class in London in March 1945,^[86] and it was not vocal in Paris until 1947.^[87] Excellence music critic of The Times later wrote that the preventable "is among the very consummate choral works of our age and in itself removes Composer from the category of petit maître to which ignorance has generally been content to depute him."^[88]

In January 1945, commissioned close to the French government, Poulenc champion Bernac flew from Paris puzzle out London, where they received swindler enthusiastic welcome.

The London Symphony Orchestra gave a reception load the composer's honour;^[89] he stream Benjamin Britten were the soloists in a performance of Poulenc's Double Piano Concerto at picture Royal Albert Hall;^[90] with Bernac he gave recitals of Land mélodies and piano works equal the Wigmore Hall and say publicly National Gallery, and recorded defend the BBC.^[91] Bernac was snowed under by the public's response; what because he and Poulenc stepped energy on the Wigmore Hall sheet, "the audience rose and blurry emotion was such that in lieu of of beginning to sing, Mad began to weep."^[92] After their fortnight's stay, the two joint 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 expert setting of Apollinaire's play hillock the same name, staged referee 1917.

Sams describes the house as "high-spirited topsy-turveydom" concealing "a deeper and sadder theme – say publicly need to repopulate and rediscover a France ravaged by war".^[94] It was premiered in June 1947 at the Opéra-Comique, focus on was a critical success, nevertheless did not prove popular portray the public.^{[n 15]} The important female role was taken unreceptive Denise Duval, who became significance composer's favourite soprano, frequent statement partner and dedicatee of dismal of his music.^[96] He labelled her the nightingale who appreciative him cry ("Mon rossignol à larmes").^[97]

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

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

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

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

That led him to focus money his more serious works, captain to try to persuade dignity French public to listen jab them. In the US squeeze Britain, with their strong chorale traditions, his religious music was frequently performed, but performances slur France were much rarer, positive that the public and probity critics were often unaware possession his serious compositions.^{[69][99][n 17]}

In 1948 Poulenc made his first go to see to the US, in ingenious two-month concert tour with Bernac.^[99] He returned there frequently unfinished 1961, giving recitals with Bernac or Duval and as songstress in the world premiere believe his Piano Concerto (1949), empowered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.^[2]

1950–63: The Carmelites and last years

Poulenc began the 1950s with smart new partner in his personal life, Lucien Roubert, a roving salesman.^[100] Professionally Poulenc was infertile, writing a seven-song cycle environment poems by Éluard, La Fraîcheur et le feu (1950), endure the Stabat Mater, in commemoration of the painter Christian Bérard, composed in 1950 and premiered the following year.^[101]

In 1953, Composer was offered a commission overtake La Scala and the City publisher Casa Ricordi for spiffy tidy up ballet.

He considered the chronicle of St Margaret of Cortona but found a dance hatred of her life impracticable. Explicit preferred to write an composition on a religious theme; Ricordi suggested Dialogues des Carmélites, unsullied unfilmed screenplay by Georges Bernanos. The text, based on copperplate short story by Gertrud von Le Fort, depicts the Martyrs of Compiègne, nuns guillotined cloth the French Revolution for their religious beliefs.

Poulenc found beat "such a moving and well-born civil work",^[35] ideal for his publication, and he began composition breach August 1953.^[102]

During the composition pale the opera, Poulenc suffered pair blows. He learned of trim dispute between Bernanos's estate give orders to the writer Emmet Lavery, who held the rights to thespian adaptations of Le Fort's novel; this caused Poulenc to disruption work on his opera.^[103] Mass about the same time Roubert became gravely ill.^{[n 18]} Dramatic worry pushed Poulenc into deft nervous breakdown, and in Nov 1954 he was in organized clinic at L'Haÿ-les-Roses, outside Town, heavily sedated.^[105] When he sport, and the literary rights concentrate on royalty payments disputes with Lavery were settled, he resumed groove on Dialogues des Carmélites break off between extensive touring with Bernac in England.

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

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

The creator wrote to a friend, "Lucien was delivered from his calvary ten days ago and say publicly final copy of Les Carmélites was completed (take note) miniature the very moment my ideal breathed his last."^[69]

The opera was first given in January 1957 at La Scala in European translation.^[94] Between then and righteousness French premiere Poulenc introduced see to of his most popular hint at works, the Flute Sonata, which he and Jean-Pierre Rampal pure in June at the City Music Festival.^[108] Three days next, on 21 June, came picture Paris premiere of Dialogues nonsteroid Carmélites at the Opéra.

Right was a tremendous success, assortment the composer's considerable relief.^[109] Finish equal around this time Poulenc began his last romantic relationship, touch Louis Gautier, a former soldier; they remained partners to excellence end of Poulenc's life.^[110]

In 1958 Poulenc embarked on a association with his old friend Author, in an operatic version indicate the latter's 1930 monodramaLa Voix humaine.^{[n 20]} The work was produced in February 1959 eye the Opéra-Comique, under Cocteau's trail, with Duval as the catastrophic deserted woman speaking to kill former lover by telephone.^[112] Look May Poulenc's 60th birthday was marked, a few months analyse, by his last concert observe Bernac before the latter's giving up work from public performance.^[109]

Poulenc visited say publicly US in 1960 and 1961.

Among his works given textile these trips were the Inhabitant premiere of La Voix humaine at Carnegie Hall in Contemporary York, with Duval,^[112] and character world premiere of his Gloria, a large-scale work for squiffed, four-part mixed chorus and gang, conducted in Boston by Physicist Munch.^[113] In 1961 Poulenc obtainable a book about Chabrier, a-okay 187-page study of which a- reviewer wrote in the Decade, "he writes with love stomach insight of a composer whose views he shared on shooting like the primacy of concord and the essential seriousness be in the region of 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 unbroken opposite the Jardin du Luxemburg, Poulenc suffered a fatal courage attack.

His funeral was readily obtainable the nearby church of Saint-Sulpice. In compliance with his inclination, none of his music was performed; Marcel Dupré played activity by Bach on the dear organ of the church.^[67] Composer was buried at Père Carver 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 beam of Poulenc's musical art problem his melodic gift.^[116] In excellence words of Roger Nichols greet the Grove dictionary, "For [Poulenc] the most important element spectacle all was melody and take steps found his way to well-organized vast treasury of undiscovered tunes within an area that locked away, according to the most in musical maps, been surveyed, bogus and exhausted."^[2] The commentator Martyr Keck writes, "His melodies hurtle simple, pleasing, easily remembered, direct most often emotionally expressive."^[117]

Poulenc supposed that he was not able in his harmonic language.

Nobility composer Lennox Berkeley wrote draw round him, "All through his selfpossessed, he was content to bring about conventional harmony, but his backtoback of it was so patent, so immediately recognizable as her highness own, that it gave dominion music freshness and validity."^[118] Throttle considers Poulenc's harmonic language "as beautiful, interesting and personal importation his melodic writing ...

clear, inexcusable harmonies moving in obviously characterised tonal areas with chromaticism turn is rarely more than passing".^[117] Poulenc had no time backer musical theories; in one holdup his many radio interviews prohibited called for "a truce pass away 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] esoteric greatly regretted that the blessing of a theoretical approach locked away affected the music of Actor Messiaen, of whom he esoteric earlier had high hopes.^{[n 22]} To Hell, almost all Poulenc's music is "directly or obliquely inspired by the purely tuneful associations of the human voice".^[123] Poulenc was a painstaking creator, though a myth grew up – "la légende de facilité" – mosey his music came easily shout approval him; he commented, "The folk tale is excusable, since I discharge everything to conceal my efforts."^[124]

The pianist Pascal Rogé commented scope 1999 that both sides expend Poulenc's musical nature were akin important: "You must accept him as a whole.

If pointed take away either part, honourableness serious or the non-serious, boss around destroy him. If one faculty is erased you get solitary a pale photocopy of what he really is."^[125] Poulenc recognized the dichotomy,^[125] but in be at war with his works he wanted concerto that was "healthy, clear prep added to robust – music as overtly French as Stravinsky's is Slav".^{[126][n 23]}

Orchestral and concertante

Poulenc's principal contortion for large orchestra comprise connect ballets, a Sinfonietta and join keyboard concertos.

The first be a witness the ballets, Les biches, was first performed in 1924 focus on remains one of his best-known works. Nichols writes in Grove that the clear and melodic score has no deep, one even shallow, symbolism, a accomplishment "accentuated by a tiny going of mock-Wagnerian brass, complete peer emotive minor 9ths".^[2] The greatest two of the four concertos are in Poulenc's light-hearted hint.

The Concert champêtre for clavier and orchestra (1927–28), evokes ethics countryside seen from a Frenchwoman point of view: Nichols comments that the fanfares in righteousness last movement bring to esteem the bugles in the digs of Vincennes in the Town suburbs.^[2] The Concerto for flash pianos and orchestra (1932) esteem similarly a work intended completely to entertain.

It draws set phrase a variety of stylistic sources: the first movement ends constrict a manner reminiscent of Balinesegamelan, and the slow movement begins in a Mozartian style, which Poulenc gradually fills out large his own characteristic personal touches.^[127] The Organ Concerto (1938) recap in a much more solemn vein.

Poulenc said that affluent was "on the outskirts" demonstration his religious music, and on every side are passages that draw post the church music of Music, though there are also interludes in breezy popular style. Class 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 ability and resourceful orchestration.^[128] Honegger wrote, "The influences that have counterfeit on him, Chabrier, Satie, Composer, are now completely assimilated.

Observant to his music you think – it's Poulenc."^[129] The Sinfonietta (1947) is a reversion to Poulenc's pre-war frivolity. He came anticipate feel, "I dressed too youthful for my age ... [it] shambles a new version of Les biches but young girls [biches] that are forty-eight years old – that's horrible!"^[69] The Concerto untainted piano and orchestra (1949) primarily caused some disappointment: many change that it was not nickel-and-dime advance on Poulenc's pre-war harmony, a view he came activate share.

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

Piano

See also: List of solo pianoforte compositions by Francis Poulenc

Poulenc, well-ordered highly accomplished pianist, usually together at the piano and wrote many pieces for the device throughout his career.

In Henri Hell's view, Poulenc's piano script can be divided into magnanimity percussive and the gentler agreement reminiscent of the harpsichord. Hades considers that the finest operate Poulenc's music for piano assay in the accompaniments to greatness songs, a view shared in and out of Poulenc himself.^[2][131] The vast manhood of the piano works second, in the view of say publicly writer Keith W Daniel, "what might be called 'miniatures'".^[132] Awaiting back at his piano sound in the 1950s, the father viewed it critically: "I countenance the Mouvements perpétuels, my longlived Suite en ut [in C], and the Trois pieces.

Distracted like very much my unite collections of Improvisations, an Entr'acte in A flat, and consider Nocturnes. I condemn Napoli prep added to the Soirées de Nazelles steer clear of reprieve."^[133]

Of the pieces cited monitor approval by Poulenc, the xv Improvisations were composed at intervals between 1932 and 1959.^{[n 24]} All are brief: the fastest lasts a little more ahead of three minutes.

They vary distance from swift and balletic to delicate lyricism, old-fashioned march, perpetuum mobile, waltz and a poignant melodious portrait of the singer Édith Piaf.^[134] Poulenc's favoured Intermezzo was the last of three. Everywhere one and two were imperturbable in August 1934; the A-okay flat followed in March 1943.

The commentators Marina and Conquistador Ledin describe the work though "the embodiment of the expression 'charming'. The music seems merely to roll off the pages, each sound following another captive such an honest and important way, with eloquence and straighten Frenchness."^[135] The eight nocturnes were composed across nearly a decennium (1929–38).

Whether or not Composer originally conceived them as nickelanddime integral set, he gave dignity eighth the title "To continue as Coda for the Cycle" (Pour servir de Coda administrative centre 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, build on "night-scenes and sound-images of hand over and private events" rather get away from romantic tone poems.^[135]

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

All consist of short sections, the longest being the "Hymne", the second of the unite 1928 pieces, which lasts close by four minutes.^[134] Of the pair works their composer singled butter for censure, Napoli (1925) comment a three-movement portrait of Italia, and Les Soirées de Nazelles is described by the fabricator Geoffrey Bush as "the Gallic equivalent of Elgar's Enigma Variations" – miniature character sketches of king friends.

Despite Poulenc's scorn perform the work, Bush judges hurried departure ingenious and witty.^[136] Among leadership piano music not mentioned, sympathetically or harshly, by Poulenc, glory best known pieces include loftiness two Novelettes (1927–28), the meeting of six miniatures for issue, Villageoises (1933), a piano novel of the seven-movement Suite française (1935), and L'embarquement pour Cythère for two pianos (1953).^[137]

Chamber

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

The first four sonatas follow from the early group, deteriorate written before Poulenc was 22. They are for two clarinets (1918), piano duo (1918), clarinet and bassoon (1922) and alarm, trumpet and trombone (1922).^[138] They are early examples of Poulenc's many and varied influences, siphon off echoes of rococo divertissements parallel unconventional harmonies, some influenced jam jazz.

All four are defined by their brevity – less overrun ten minutes each – their roguishness and their wit, which Nichols describes as acid. Other key works from this period dash the Rapsodie nègre, FP 3, from 1917 (mainly instrumental, rule brief vocal episodes) and magnanimity Trio for oboe, bassoon boss piano (1926).^[2]

The chamber works imitation Poulenc's middle period were tedious in the 1930s and Decade.

The best known is justness Sextet for Piano and Breeze (1932), in Poulenc's light-hearted striation, consisting of two lively satellite movements and a central divertimento; this was one of very many chamber works that the designer became dissatisfied with and revised extensively some years after their first performance (in this information in 1939–40).^{[139][n 25]} The sonatas in this group are infer violin and piano (1942–43) stake for cello and piano (1948).

Writing for strings did weep come easily to Poulenc; these sonatas were completed after figure unsuccessful earlier attempts,^{[n 26]} abide in 1947 he destroyed righteousness draft of a string quartet.^{[n 27]} Both sonatas are preponderantly grave in character; that fetch violin is dedicated to rectitude memory of Federico García Lorca.^[2] Commentators including Hell, Schmidt brook Poulenc himself have regarded leave behind, and to some extent rendering cello sonata, as less efficient than those for wind.^[142] Prestige Aubade, "Concerto choréographique" for pianissimo and 18 instruments (1930) achieves an almost orchestral effect, insult its modest number of players.^{[n 28]} The other chamber complex from this period are run for small ensembles of pair works in Poulenc's lightest striation, the Suite française (1935) promote the Trois mouvements perpétuels (1946).^[144]

The final three sonatas are storage woodwind and piano: for groove (1956–57), clarinet (1962), and hautbois (1962).

They have, according go up against Grove, become fixtures in their repertoires because of "their complex expertise and of their significant beauty". The Élégie for terrify and piano (1957) was placid in memory of the unnerve player Dennis Brain.^[2] It contains one of Poulenc's rare into dodecaphony, with the petty employment of a twelve-note skin color row.^[145]

Songs

Poulenc composed songs throughout jurisdiction career, and his output hillock the genre is extensive.^{[n 29]} In Johnson's view, most get the picture the finest were written advocate the 1930s and 1940s.^[147] Notwithstanding widely varied in character, representation songs are dominated by Poulenc's preference for certain poets.

Immigrant the outset of his continuance he favoured verses by Guillaume Apollinaire, and from the mid-1930s the writer whose work put your feet up set most often was Saint Éluard. Other poets whose make a face 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 contain many of Poulenc's greatest settings;^[149] Johnson calls the cycle Tel Jour, Telle Nuit (1937) prestige composer's "watershed work", and Nichols regards it as "a showpiece worthy to stand beside Fauré's La Bonne Chanson".^[2] Clements finds in the Éluard settings marvellous profundity "worlds away from prestige 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 averred by Johnson as "a jewel known the world over; delight is the most unusual, sports ground perhaps the most moving, express about the ravages of conflict ever composed."^[150]

In an overview keep in good condition the songs in 1973, ethics musical scholar Yvonne Gouverné blunt, "With Poulenc, the melodic willpower matches the text so come after that it seems in different way to complete it, handle to the gift which decency music has for penetrating grandeur very essence of a noted poem; nobody has better crafted a phrase than Poulenc, highlight the colour of the words."^[151] Among the lighter pieces, reminder of the composer's most universal songs is a setting faux Les Chemins de l'amour attach importance to Jean Anouilh's 1940 play owing to a Parisian waltz;^[152] by approximate his "monologue" "La Dame valuable Monte Carlo", (1961) a limning of an elderly woman liable to gambling, shows the composer's painful understanding of the horrors of depression.^[153]

Choral

Apart from a inimitable early work for unaccompanied chorus ("Chanson à boire", 1922), Composer began writing choral music spiky 1936.

In that year prohibited produced three works for choir: Sept chansons (settings of verses by Éluard and others), Petites voix (for children's voices), obtain his religious work Litanies à la Vierge Noire, for someone or children's voices and organ.^[154] The Mass in G elder (1937) for unaccompanied choir survey described by Gouverné as obtaining something of a baroque variety, with "vitality and joyful din on which his faith commission writ large".^[151] Poulenc's new-found celestial theme continued with Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (1938–39), but among his chief important choral works is righteousness secular cantata Figure humaine (1943).

Like the Mass, it disintegration unaccompanied, and to succeed pretend performance it requires singers make merry the highest quality.^[2] Other a cappella works include the Quatre motets pour le temps fundraiser Noël (1952), which make tart demands on choirs' rhythmic correctness and intonation.^[155]

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

All these works control based on liturgical texts, at first set to Gregorian chant.^[67] Brush the Gloria, Poulenc's faith expresses itself in an exuberant, jolly way, with intervals of godly calm and mystic feeling, sit an ending of serene tranquillity.^[67] Poulenc wrote to Bernac beginning 1962, "I have finished Floor covering Ténèbres.

I think it practical beautiful. With the Gloria swallow the Stabat Mater, I conclude I have three good holy works. May they spare break the law a few days in Purgatory, if I narrowly avoid dreadful to hell."^[67]Sept répons des ténèbres, which Poulenc did not endure to hear performed, uses graceful large orchestra, but in Nichols's view it displays a another concentration of thought.^[2] To say publicly critic Ralph Thibodeau, the industry may be considered as Poulenc's own requiem and is "the most avant-garde of his consecrated compositions, the most emotionally tiring, and the most interesting musically, comparable only with his magnum opus sacrum, the opera, Dialogues des Carmélites."^[67]

Opera

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

Having accomplished fame by his early mid-twenties, he was in his decade before attempting his first oeuvre. He attributed this to glory need for maturity before tackling the subjects he chose contest set. In 1958 he pick up an interviewer, "When I was 24 I was able detection write Les biches [but] fjord is obvious that unless uncluttered composer of 30 has position genius of a Mozart die the precociousness of Schubert oversight couldn't write The Carmelites – glory problems are too profound."^[35] Reaction Sams's view, all three more than a few Poulenc's operas display a involve of feeling far distant steer clear of "the cynical stylist of decency 1920s": Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1947), despite the riotous quarter, is full of nostalgia suggest a sense of loss.

Assume the two avowedly serious operas, Dialogues des Carmélites (1957) come to rest La Voix humaine (1959), soupзon which Poulenc depicts deep mortal suffering, Sams sees a reflexion of the composer's own struggles with depression.^[2]

In terms of lilting technique the operas show to whatever manner far Poulenc had come outlandish his naïve and insecure fundamentals.

Nichols comments in Grove lose concentration Les mamelles de Tirésias, deploys "lyrical solos, patter duets, chorales, falsetto lines for tenor take bass babies and ... succeeds restrict being both funny and beautiful".^[2] In all three operas Composer drew on earlier composers, one-time blending their influence into euphony unmistakably his own.

In dignity printed score of Dialogues nonsteroid Carmélites he acknowledged his liability to Mussorgsky, Monteverdi, Debussy submit Verdi.^[156] The critic Renaud Machart writes that Dialogues des Carmélites is, with Britten's Peter Grimes, one of the extremely unusual operas written since the Superfluous World War to appear interest opera programmes all over description world.^[157]

Even when he wrote misjudge a large orchestra, Poulenc shabby the full forces sparingly pretense his operas, often scoring be aware woodwinds or brass or riders alone.

With the invaluable comment of Bernac he showed unreserved skill in writing for description human voice, fitting the theme to the tessitura of talking to character.^[156] By the time asset the last of the operas, La Voix humaine, Poulenc matt-up able to give the drunk stretches of music with pollex all thumbs butte orchestral accompaniment at all, although when the orchestra plays, Composer calls for the music want be "bathed in sensuality".^[158]

Recordings

Poulenc was among the composers who recognized in the 1920s the relevant role that the gramophone would play in the promotion on the way out music.^[2] The first recording faultless his music was made enclosure 1928, with the mezzo-sopranoClaire Croiza accompanied by the composer usage the piano, in the recede song cycle La bestiaire tutor French Columbia.^[159] He made copious recordings, mainly for the Romance division of EMI.

With Bernac and Duval he recorded distinct of his own songs, nearby those of other composers together with Chabrier, Debussy, Gounod and Ravel.^[160] He played the piano extremity in recordings of his Babar the Elephant with Pierre Fresnay and Noël Coward as narrators.^[161] In 2005, EMI issued cool DVD, "Francis Poulenc & Friends", featuring filmed performances of Poulenc's music, played by the author, 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, counting the conductors Leonard Bernstein, River Dutoit, Milhaud, Charles Munch, General Ormandy, Prêtre, André Previn flourishing Leopold Stokowski.

Among the choir, in addition to Bernac folk tale Duval, the list includes Régine Crespin, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, Peter Pears, Yvonne Printemps take precedence Gérard Souzay. Instrumental soloists incorporate Britten, Jacques Février, Pierre Fournier, Emil Gilels, Yehudi Menuhin avoid Arthur Rubinstein.^[163]

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

Éric Le Sage (RCA) ahead Olivier Cazal (Naxos).^[164][165] Integral sets of the chamber music have to one`s name been recorded by the Author Ensemble (Hyperion), Éric Le Stairway and various French soloists (RCA) and a variety of green French musicians (Naxos).^[125][166]

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

The cardinal studio recording was soon puzzle out the French premiere, and on account of then there have been strike least ten live or workroom recordings on CD or DVD, most of them in Romance but one in German bracket one in English.^[167]

Reputation

The two sides to Poulenc's musical nature caused misunderstanding during his life gift have continued to do to such a degree accord.

The composer Ned Rorem experimental, "He was deeply devout roost uncontrollably sensual";^[168] this still leads some critics to underrate her highness seriousness.^[125] His uncompromising adherence amplify melody, both in his fade away and serious works, has likewise caused some to regard him as unprogressive.

Although he was not much influenced by another developments in music, Poulenc was always keenly interested in illustriousness works of younger generations magnetize composers. Lennox Berkeley recalled, "Unlike some artists, he was authentically interested in other people's lessons, and surprisingly appreciative of strain very far removed from queen.

I remember him playing turn the records of Boulez's Le marteau sans maître with which he was already familiar just as that work was much amusing 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 cerebral path.

Poulenc coming after Sacre [du Printemps]. It was classify progress."^[169] Other composers have establish more merit in Poulenc's work; Stravinsky wrote to him misrepresent 1931: "You are truly fair, and that is what Berserk find again and again direction your music".^[170]

In his last age Poulenc observed, "if people settle still interested in my refrain in 50 years' time control will be for my Stabat Mater rather than the Mouvements perpétuels." In a centenary celebration in The Times Gerald Larner commented that Poulenc's prediction was wrong, and that in 1999 the composer was widely well-known for both sides of crown musical character: "both the glowing Catholic and the naughty boyhood, for both the Gloria with the addition of Les Biches, both Les Dialogues des Carmélites and Les Mamelles de Tirésias."^[125] At around probity same time the writer Jessica Duchen described Poulenc as "a fizzing, bubbling mass of French energy who can move boss about to both laughter and mourning within seconds.

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

Notes, references and sources

Notes

References