Poulenc

[teamsaint]

I think a Poulenc thread is just what this forum needs!

I'm slowly working my way through the Erato complete works box, ( which I thoroughly recommend, ) as a way of trying to get to grips with his music, which perhaps doesn't get as much coverage as it deserves.

I missed the COTW from a couple of years ago, so I'll have a listen to that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p020mk82

Anyway, thoughts about his music, performances, recordings ? Favourite works?

Do you remember to celebrate his birthday. I always do.......

[Pulcinella]

Do you remember to celebrate his birthday.

To save everyone else having to find out by Googling:
Born: 7 January 1899, Paris, France
Died: 30 January 1963, Paris, France

I always do.......

With or by doing what, ts?

[cloughie]

I think a Poulenc thread is just what this forum needs!

I'm slowly working my way through the Erato complete works box, ( which I thoroughly recommend, ) as a way of trying to get to grips with his music, which perhaps doesn't get as much coverage as it deserves.

I missed the COTW from a couple of years ago, so I'll have a listen to that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p020mk82

Anyway, thoughts about his music, performances, recordings ? Favourite works?

Do you remember to celebrate his birthday. I always do.......

ts, many wonderful works in his oeuvre but two which I have long loved are the Organ Concerto and Les Biches. Your thread reminds me that I, not too long ago, bought the Dutoit 5CD box - must give it a serious listen.

[teamsaint]

To save everyone else having to find out by Googling:
Born: 7 January 1899, Paris, France
Died: 30 January 1963, Paris, France


With or by doing what, ts?

Oh, I might crank up the volume on the Organ Concerto and raise a glass of something french....we capricorns know how to let our hair down....

[Serial_Apologist]

I once had a vivid dream that I was interviewing Poulenc. We were conversing in French - I was speaking perfect French, which in waking life would be impossible - and he was spiritedly telling me how he was never able to leave out all the musical loves that had influenced him from his own music - Chopin, Ravel, Stravinsky.

Extraordinary!

[Pulcinella]

Oh, I might crank up the volume on the Organ Concerto and raise a glass of something french....we capricorns know how to let our hair down....

Ah! I wondered if it was your birthday too.

[cloughie]

Oh, I might crank up the volume on the Organ Concerto and raise a glass of something french....we capricorns know how to let our hair down....

You mean you don't need an excuse to act the goat!

[jayne lee wilson]

This is my all-time favourite Poulenc set, with its striking green & white livery....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poulenc-Concertos-Orchestral-Sacred-Music/dp/B0000241R0/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1487278540&sr=8-16&keywords=poulenc+pretre

Wonderful sounding transfers. I lost track of it for years, having only borrowed it in the late 1990s.... so, thrilled to find a perfect secondhand one more recently.

Most of his best choral & orchestral music is in there in unmatchably idiomatic recordings (however prone to technical imperfection, as with DSCH à la russe...)
But they've all since been bundled into later larger Erato collections, so.....

Apart from Prêtre and his collaborators, I'd take the Dutoit survey on Decca, again of concertos, choral and orchestral works, as an excellent modern foil to the 1960s French originals...less compelling for me than Prêtre et al, but very well done & beautifully recorded again...

Pet favourites...? Sinfonietta, Sept Répons, Stabat Mater...Concert Champêtre (but probably only with Van de Wiele on the Pleyel instrument, with Dervaux...)

[Bryn]

This is my all-time favourite Poulenc set, with its striking green & white livery....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poulenc-Concertos-Orchestral-Sacred-Music/dp/B0000241R0/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1487278540&sr=8-16&keywords=poulenc+pretre

Wonderful sounding transfers.

Are those Pretre et al discs not in the EMI/Erato/Warner complete Poulenc box (Amazon ASIN: B0091JQH76)for rather less money?

[jayne lee wilson]

Are those Pretre et al discs not in the EMI/Erato/Warner complete Poulenc box (Amazon ASIN: B0091JQH76)for rather less money?

Absolutely, as alluded to in line 5, #8.....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poulenc-Integrale-50e-anniversaire-1963-2013/dp/B0091JQH76/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1487294345&sr=8-3&keywords=poulenc+erato

My problem was (as ever) I didn't want all the songs and piano music, and I tend to shy away from large boxsets & feel oppressed by them, whatever their value (With one exception - but that was partly your fault, anyway Bryn - see the listening thread) . I simply loved the separate-volume choices of the late 90s EMIs allowing me to pick and choose, I had a deep personal attachment to the orchestral & choral music going back to the original borrowed vinyl releases, and the box colour-codings were an added attraction... but I came to CD late, and this pretty, glossy green & white box was one of the first releases I fell in love with, when I couldn't afford to buy very much.

Incidentally, the best remasters I ever heard of the Organ Concerto (complete with pitch correction) and the Gloria were the Pristine 24/48 versions, so do check them out once the site is back up and running...

[BBMmk2]

The Chandos recording I bought recently, of Poulenc's piano concertante music and sonatas have been very enjoyable. Louis Lortie, Helene Mercier, BBC PO, Edward Gardner.

[gurnemanz]

I don't have that many recordings. Some highlights:

Mélodies:
Decca box.
Composer accompanying Pierre Bernac in 19 songs on the Composers in Person box
I recently downloaded the new Maureen Forrester re-issue selection from Audite. I love her pungent contralto in the Poulenc group here.
(I am sorely tempted by the Hyperion collection and will probably succumb one day)

Gloria, Stabat Mater - Hickox

Brilliant Classics box of piano and chamber music

I don't have a recording of Dialogues des Carmélites but we loved the beautiful staging at RoH in 2014.

[Pulcinella]

Resurrecting this thread after yesterday's BaL on the Concerto for two pianos and a screening last night of Dialogues (Live from The Met).
Are there any good studies (in English) of Poulenc (man and music)?

PS: Presumably this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Francis-Poulenc-Oxford-Studies-Composers/dp/019816338X/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Poulenc&qid=1557648372&s=books&sr=1-4

Wilfrid Mellers, OUP

[LeMartinPecheur]

Resurrecting this thread after yesterday's BaL on the Concerto for two pianos and a screening last night of Dialogues (Live from The Met).
Are there any good studies (in English) of Poulenc (man and music)?

PS: Presumably this?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Francis-Poulenc-Oxford-Studies-Composers/dp/019816338X/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Poulenc&qid=1557648372&s=books&sr=1-4

Wilfrid Mellers, OUP

The Mellers book is very good, but I did get my copy a good bit cheaper than current prices!

[Ein Heldenleben]

For Poulenc and opera fans everywhere - if you get a chance to see a repeat of last night’s Met relay of Dialogues Des Carmelites do not miss it - it was stunning.