Poulenc: Sextet / Trio / Oboe Sonata / Flute Sonata

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Cat No: 8553611

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099461122

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: POULENC

Description
Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) Complete Chamber Music, Volume1 'Francis Poulenc is music itself, I knowno music more direct, more simply expressed nor which goes so unerringly to itstarget.' This praise from his friend, the composer Darius Milhaud, can only beequalled by that from Arthur Honegger who admired 'the man, a born composer,'who, 'in the midst of fashions, systems, prescriptions, has stayed true tohimself with that rare courage which demands respect.'A French musician par excellence, FrancisPoulenc grew up in the heart of Paris, between the Madeleine ('my home town'),the Marais ('my village') and Nogent-sur-Mame ('my countryside... my paradisewith its open-air cafes, its chip-sellers and its bals musettes'). A precociouspianist, his creativity fed on Debussy who had 'awakened him to music',Stravinsky whom 'he took as his guide', Ravel and, above all, Satie, whoinfluenced him considerably 'more aesthetically than musically.' Though heconsidered Chabrier a 'grandad', the music-hall fascinated and enthralled him.For many years, Poulenc had to put up with being labelled a 'superficial' and'light' composer. Nothing is further from the truth. His correspondence,collected by Myriam Chim?¿nes, and the magnificent biography by Renaud Marchart,both bear witness to this. ' And his music remains brazenly up-to-date.'From the first work that he dared makepublic, the Rapsodie n?¿gre, at the advanced age of nineteen years, tothe very last, the Sonata for clarinet and piano and Sonata for oboeand piano, completed shortly before his unexpected death, Francis Poulencdevoted himself intermittently to chamber music, sometimes following an urgentdesire to write, sometimes in response to the wishes of virtuosi friends. Heliked to say, 'To write what seems right to me, when I want to, that is mymotto as a composer.'Saturated with the Parisian excitementgreeting the end of the Great War, Poulenc's first chamber works display 'theNew Attitude', the often jocular musical vitality of the circle of friendswhich the critics referred to as the Groupe des Six. The Rapsodien?¿gre, the Sonata for two clarinets, the Piano Sonata for fourhands, the Bestiaire and Cocardes were created by a man yetto reach his twentieth birthday, who, replying to a request from his Londonpublisher, described himself as follows. 'I was born in Paris on 7th January1899... I studied piano under Vines and composition almost solely through booksbecause I was fearful of being influenced by a teacher I read a lot of musicand greatly pondered musical aesthetics... My four favourite composers, my onlymasters, are Bach, Mozart, Satie and Stravinsky, I don't like Beethoven at all...I loathe Wagner ...In general, I am very eclectic, but while acknowledging thatinfluence is a necessary thing, I hate those artists who dwell in the wake ofthe masters ... Now, a crucial point, I am not a Cubist musician, even less aFuturist and, of course, not an Impressionist. I am a musician without alabel.' (Letter of 6th
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