POULENC Melodies on Poems of Guillaume Apollinaire: Dans le jardin d’Anna; Allons plus vite; La Grenoullière; Montparnasse; Hyde Park; Anguille; Carte-Postale; Avant le Cinéma; 1904; Rosemonde; Le Présent; Chanson; Hier. Banalités. Bleuet. Le Bestiaire. Cortège d’Orphée. Calligrammes • Holger Falk (bar); Alessandro Zuppardo (pn) • MDG 6031658 (58:51 Text and Translation)


What an utterly delightful CD this is! From start to finish light, bright, engaging, and completely immersed in Poulenc’s unusual sound world. Holger Falk, a name unknown to me, is an extraordinarily light, high baritone, a true bariton-matin, a voice classification virtually nonexistent among German singers—but here he is, with an upper range so free and extensive, both in full voice and voix mixte , that much of the time he sounds like a tenor. It is also a unique voice; though it has a definite German lyric-baritone sound, there is no one else he reminds me of. The voice has a velvet sheen that is wholly unique. And what an artist he is, much more subtle in a lyrical sort of way than declamatory as so many of his brethren tend to be. I found his interpretations of the famed Le Bestiaire a trifle more restrained than Thomas Allen’s outstanding recording of them (CRD 3437, the orchestrated version with the Nash Ensemble), yet comparing Falk to Allen—as well as to Pierre Bernac, in the original 1945 recording with Poulenc on piano—reveals not only that he is able to hold his own as an interpreter, but that his voice sounds much more tenorish than either of those esteemed singers. Falk’s extensive high range sounds like an arched extension of his lower tones, rather than an add-on as in the case of Bernac, whose voice—after not having heard it in some years—suddenly strikes me as somewhat Russian in quality, particularly the low range.


In addition to being an outstanding song interpreter, then, Falk has a voice I could listen to all day without fatigue. His range, arched phrasing, sensitive dynamic shading, and ability to color his tones all mark him as an artist of outstanding sensibility. I should also point out that Alessandro Zuppardo, though in a supporting role, is equally sensitive and highly musical, capable of give-and-take with his singer to a degree rare among duos who are not permanent concert partners, but since he has had extensive experience accompanying singers (among them Renato Bruson, Mariella Devia, Fabio Armiliato, Cecilia Bartoli, and Vincenzo La Scola) this comes as less of a surprise. This is a disc you’ll play over and over and over again, if you enjoy Poulenc’s songs or modern French song in general. MDG’s outstanding sound quality—rich, round, with just the right amount of natural reverberance—lends an extra patina of quality to this release. Bravo, Falk and Zuppardo! I hope to hear much more of you in the years to come.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

The enchanting piano music of Francis Poulenc deserves to be better known. Perhaps the finest exponent it has enjoyed on record is the French artist Eric Le Sage. ClassicsToday.com called his recording of the concertos the finest single disc available, “better even than the composer’s recordings, and that’s saying a lot. They have everything: style, spirit, a vivid sense of fun, a touch of sentiment that never turns maudlin, and that ability to change moods every few bars that Poulenc always requires. Beautifully clean, well-balanced sonics round out this enticing picture.” BBC Music Magazine declared: “Eric Le Sage is an outstanding Poulenc pianist.” All his recordings of the composer are now brought together in this 6-CD box.

REVIEW:

As well as the piano music 0 which he plays with an ideal balance of insouciance and intensity - there are the two piano concertos and the Aubade, and all the sonatas, with a superb lineup of soloists. Buckets of charm here, in very good sound.

– Gramophone (12/2016)

Poulenc once declared that ‘the musical transposition of a poem must be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.’ By the age of four he was already able to recite Mallarme’s Apparition by heart, and while still very young he made his first efforts at setting verses to music. He loved listening to poets read their own work, and he was a voracious reader, who saw his purpose as a composer to embellish to enrich but never to obscure the words or their meaning. Poulenc loved singers and good singing as much as poetry. All these cycles were written with particular artists in mind; several of them for his life partner, the baritone Pierre Bernac, but he also worked very closely with Clare Croiza and Denise Duval, among others. Thus his vocal lines reflect their individual personalities while being couched in his own, very singable, jazz-inflected idiom. Valentina Coladonato has chosen a path less travelled through Poulenc’s song oeuvre, avoiding the Chansons villageoises and Air chantes. Yet in La Fraîcheur et le feu, setting Poulenc’s contemporary Paul Eluard, we find an intensity and urgency of expression to rival his masterpiece, the Dialogues of the Carmelites. Motifs from the opera recur in another Eluard cycle, Le travail du peintre, which addresses seven modern painters in turn from Picasso to Villon. A bittersweet air lingers over the Dernier poeme by Desnos, Aragon’s C and the monologue La dame de Monte Carlo; but his extrovert, amusing music-hall side comes to the fore in Les chemins de l’amour, based on Jean Anouilh’s Leocadia and dedicated to Yvonne Printemps, who was a singer of light music. Even within the same cycle there are contrasting moments that eloquently illustrate Poulenc’s own artistic credo: ‘My music is my portrait’. A specialist in early and new music, the soprano Valentina Coladonato has worked with conductors including Riccardo Muti and Claudio Abbado. She and Claudio Proietti have also recorded the Shakespeare Sonnets of Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco for Brilliant Classics (BC95548).

Words drew the best out of Poulenc. His songs, choral pieces and operas mold themselves to his carefully chosen texts with affecting simplicity and sensitivity to language and to the personalities of his singers. Among the most dedicated of his interpreters was the soprano Denise Duval, for whom Poulenc conceived La voix humaine in 1958 to a monodrama written by Jean Cocteau 30 years earlier and revised by the playwright for the lyric stage. Alone in her salon, a woman – unnamed – speaks to her former lover for the last time. She calls him, the line breaks, he replies, but we hear only her side of the story: anguished, pleading, honest, self-deceiving, unbearably touching. Daniela Mazzucato made her La Scala debut in 1973, singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro under the baton of Claudio Abbado. Since then she has appeared at the world’s great opera houses singing major soubrette and lyric-soprano roles such as Musetta opposite Mirella Freni; Oscar in Un ballo in maschera conducted again by Abbado and directed by Zeffirelli; and latterly musical theatre and character roles such as Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw and Marcellina in Figaro. To Poulenc’s lonely heroine she is well placed to bring both pathos and beauty. No less touching in its way is the entertainment he devised for a group of bored children in 1940 during a summer holiday. They asked him to ‘play’ the much-loved story of Babar the Elephant, and Poulenc sat down at the piano and improvised an accompaniment to the story, soon working it up into a half-hour piece for reciter and piano. The story is told here by the experienced tenor Max René Cosotti, who worked with Glyndebourne Opera during the 1970s (including Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte) and has filled countless roles in Italian opera and operetta at distinguished opera houses throughout Italy.

In this second album in his French series, pianist Mark Bebbington is joined by baritone Roderick Williams and flautist Emer McDonough alongside the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Jan Latham-Koening in a further program of music by Francis Poulenc. Featuring some of Poulenc’s most characteristic works, the program begins with his 1929 piano concerto Aubade originally written with a choreographed ballet element for a private fancy-dress party. The following year saw the composer set Surrealist poems by his friend Max Jacob in his work Le Bal Masqué, which Poulenc described as a ‘secular cantata’. Written in 1956 the Flute Sonata was described by the composer himself as being ‘simple but subtle’, while completing the album is the 1931 Sextet for piano and wind quintet.

Poulenc wrote two ballets, the suites from which feature on this recording. Fusing together musical styles from various periods and genres enabled him to construct the largely plot-free narrative of ‘Les Biches,’ a sequence of captivating dances that explore many themes which were considered taboo at the time. In ‘Les Animaux modeles,’ Poulenc transforms the animals of La Fontain’s fables into human characters in a patchwork score brimming with color, wit, and self-borrowings. The ‘Sinfonietta’ is playful and light-hearted. From its foundation in 1948 as the Radio Eireann Symphony Orchestra, the RTE National Symphony Orchestra has been at the forefront of symphonic music in Ireland. Today, the RTE National Symphony Orchestra plays a central role in classical music in Ireland through year-long programmes of live performances, schools and educational projects, broadcasts, recordings and new commissions.

MUSIK FESTIVAL DAVOS - YOUNG A

Francis Poulenc is considered one of the greatest melodists of the 20th century but it is his individual and immediately recognizable harmonic language that makes his music so distinctive. Often overlooked in his lifetime and in the years after his death, his sacred music was an expression of his more serious side and, following the death of his close friend, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, a re-awakening of his religious faith. The Sixteen’s new recording centers around the themes of conflict and atonement, reflecting both Poulenc’s intense internal struggles and the turbulence of life in France during the mid-20th century. “Some choirs of high renown aim for a kind of robotic perfection in sync with the digital age. Christophers’ troupe contains human beings coloring lines with individual hues, yet still acting and breathing as one.” (The Times)

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REVIEW:

The sacred music of Francis Poulenc would seem somewhat off the regular path of the popular British choir The Sixteen, but they show themselves to be sensitive and skillful Poulenc interpreters. The Mass in G is perfectly controlled, but somehow radiant.

– All Music Guide

‘Francis Poulenc is music itself, I know no music more direct, more simply expressed nor which goes so unerringly to its target.’ This praise from Darius Milhaud can be applied to all of Poulenc’s music, but the chamber works represent a lifetime of working with virtuoso friends or following an urgent desire to compose, reflecting the essence of his instantly recognizable and deeply personal style. They range from Poulenc’s youthful creativity as a member of the Groupe des Six, via a rich seam of mature masterpieces, to the sonatas composed as his final works. Acclaim for these recordings can be summed up by the comment: ‘you simply can’t go wrong with any of the discs in this series.’ -ClassicsToday.com on their original release

Review:

"The common thread on the five discs is the indefatigable Alexandre Tharaud, who is involved in all but six works. There is no sense of staleness in his playing; he is clearly attuned to Poulenc’s mercurial moods. The booklet notes reprise those from the original releases, and provide a perfectly satisfactory level of information. Sound quality is equally good.

So, to the music. Poulenc was famously described as “half monk, half rascal” and it is equally appropriate for much of his music. I don’t think I have heard any other composer whose music so frequently changes mood and tempo within an individual movement. One minute it is madcap and helter-skelter, the next sad and lyrical: think “the Keystone Cops meet Mozart”! If I was to be more musically serious, I would probably reference Stravinsky, but given he is isn’t one of my favourite composers, I will stick with my descriptor. Suffice to say that there is absolutely no point listening to a one-minute sample of this music to get a sense of whether it might be for you. You will need to find a free service that offers whole movements.

Disc 1 opens with the Sextet for piano and wind quintet, and you are thrown straight away into the musical world I have just described. What separates Poulenc from Stravinsky for me is the joyousness and warmth that pervades all of Poulenc’s music[.] You cannot help but smile at the skittering fast music, while the slow music is beautifully tuneful. The Oboe Sonata, one of his last works, is perhaps my favourite. The first and last movements are, somewhat unusually, all slow, flanking a breathless middle movement Scherzando. The Trio, for piano, oboe and bassoon, returns to the fluctuating atmosphere of the sextet, and it is a measurement of Poulenc’s skill that he manages to make the bassoon an equal partner, giving it more to do than just burble (bassoonphiles, please don’t bother writing in to complain). While the flute may not be one of my favourite instruments, Poulenc’s Sonata is a delight from first to last...The Clarinet Sonata is another gem[.]"

--MusicWeb International (David Barker)

Past praise for previoulsy released volumes included in this set:

Poulenc: Sextet / Trio / Oboe Sonata / Flute Sonata

All of the musicians are superb, but several deserve special mention. Alexandre Tharaud plays Poulenc's piano parts with great flair, wit, and a true feeling for the music's manic shifts from raucous high spirits to nostalgia and melancholy. Since all of these works feature the piano, the importance of his contribution can't be overestimated. Laurent Lefèvre's reedy, piercing, truly "French" sounding bassoon is a highlight both of the Sextet and the delicious Trio.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Poulenc: Sonata for Two Pianos / Clarinet Sonatas

Naxos' triumphant march through Poulenc's complete chamber music continues with this latest release containing, among a host of smaller items, a smashing performance of the magnificent Sonata for Two Pianos, one of the composer's greatest large works in any medium. Alexandre Tharaud and Francis Chaplin play beautifully…hypnotically seductive in the slow introduction and third movement, while the faster music has the right rhythmic skittishness and crisp articulation. The other outstanding performance here is the Sonata for horn, trumpet, and trombone. This awkward but charming piece has seldom sounded better balanced and more natural (not to mention in tune), and it's very well recorded in a warm acoustic. The other pieces are trifles, but no less enjoyable for that. Another winner.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

Poulenc: Bal Masque (Le) / Rapsodie Negre / Élégie

Many full-priced editions of this music offer far less value, both artistically and with respect to presentation. You simply can't go wrong with any of the discs in this series, and at these prices you can surely afford to collect them all.

-- ClassicsToday.com (David Hurwitz)

The oboe is said to be one of the most complex instruments there is, not only for players but for those who compose music for it, too. As a performer and professor, Céline Moinet has studied almost every single piece for the oboe in recent years. Thus she knows all too well that not every composer has been able to handle and stage the instrument in their music in a way that truly does it justice. A few stand out from the crowd, and the musician has already devoted herself to them in detail in her past album projects, including Bach, Robert Schumann, Berio, and Britten, to name a few. On this album, Moinet turns her gaze towards her home country France, and to the composers whose work made her fall in love with the oboe as a young girl: Francis Poulenc (Oboe Sonata and Trio for Oboe, Bassoon, and Piano); Claude Debussy (Rapsodie and Andante from the Piano Trio); Maurice Ravel (Le Tombeau de Couperin); and Camille Saint-Saëns (Oboe Sonata).