More albums from Francis Poulenc
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Poulenc: Léocadia, FP 106: Les chemins de l'amour
Sabine Devieilhe & Alexandre Tharaud
Poulenc: Sonata for Violin and Piano: III. Presto tragico
Benjamin Baker & Daniel Lebhardt
Poulenc: Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, FP 184: II. Romanza
Maximiliano Martin
Poulenc: 1. Allegro ma non troppo
Lucas Jussen, Arthur Jussen, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra & Stéphane Denève
Poulenc: 2. Larghetto
Lucas Jussen, Arthur Jussen, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra & Stéphane Denève
Poulenc: 3. Finale (Allegro molto)
Lucas Jussen, Arthur Jussen, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra & Stéphane Denève
Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor, FP 61: I. Allegro ma non troppo (Live from Waldbühne, Berlin / 2005)
Katia & Marielle Labèque, Berlin Philharmonic & Sir Simon Rattle
Les chemins de l'amour, FP. 106 (Transcr. for Cello and Piano) [Live]
Jaemin Han & Jonathan Ware
Poulenc: Les chemins de l'amour, FP 106 (Arr. for Flute, Cello and Piano)
Cocomi, Haruma Sato & Ryoma Takagi
Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor, FP 61: II. Larghetto (Live from Waldbühne, Berlin / 2005)
Katia & Marielle Labèque, Berlin Philharmonic & Sir Simon Rattle
About Francis Poulenc
Artist Biography
There’s a duality to Francis Poulenc: on the one hand mischievously upbeat, with the salon chic of Paris in the 1920s and '30s; on the other, passionately spiritual, melancholic, and austere. But tears and laughter come together in a robust sensuality, with great (you might say shameless) tunes that sidestep criticism and go direct to the heart. Born in 1899 into Parisian privilege, he moved in the charmed circles of writers like Apollinaire and Cocteau, whose words he would set to music in the songs and other vocal works that underpin his creativity. Collections like the cycle Le bestiaire (1919) established his reputation, becoming a feature of the long performing partnership he shared as a pianist with baritone Pierre Bernac. And his vocal writing culminated in idiosyncratic takes on opera like the surrealist romp Les mamelles de Tirésias (1947) and a lacerating monodrama about unrequited love La voix humaine (1959). But in the mid-1930s, after the death of a friend, he had a spiritual experience that revived his Catholic faith and prompted a sequence of fervently religious works: some solemn, like the Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (1939); some brazenly joyous, like the Gloria (1961). The high point of Poulenc’s devotional writing came with another unconventional opera, Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), which has one of the most extraordinary final scenes in lyric theater, as an entire community of French nuns go one by one to the guillotine. Poulenc himself died less spectacularly in 1963.
Hometown
Paris, France
Genre
Classical
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