Poulenc & Farrenc

POULENC & FARRENC Thursday 15 October 2020, The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh –––––

PROGRAMME NOTE

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SEATING LIST VIOLIN Kana Kawashima

FLUTE André Cebrián

VIOLA Felix Tanner

OBOE Robin Williams

CELLO Philip Higham

CLARINET Maximiliano Martín

DOUBLE BASS Adrian Bornet

BASSOON Alison Green HORN Patrick Broderick PIANO Simon Smith

WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR Poulenc (1899-1963) Sextet, FP 100 (1932) Allegro vivace Divertissement: Andantino Finale: Prestissimo

Farrenc (1804-1875) Nonet, Op 38 (1849) Adagio – Allegro Tema e Variazione: Andante con moto Scherzo: Vivace – Trio Adagio – Allegro

––––– ‘A musical clown of the first order’: that was musicologist Martin Cooper’s description of Francis Poulenc in his 1951 book French Music. Rather reductive, maybe, but it’s hard to refute that pithy assessment, certainly in the context of a work like the 1932 Sextet for piano and wind instruments, surely one of the composer’s most intentionally witty creations. But there’s far more to Poulenc than simply fun and high jinks: the description of the composer as ‘half monk, half rascal’ by French critic Claude Rostande is probably closer to the mark, as we’ll see.

Poulenc was a Parisian through and through, born into the comfort and security of a well-heeled family whose copious wealth had come from pharmaceuticals. (His father’s company would later become the well-known Rhône-Poulenc, which – following a couple of buyouts and mergers – is now part of Sanofi, one of the major developers – we hope – of a Covid-19 vaccine.) Without the necessity of finding himself a job, the young Poulenc was able to devote himself to his passion for music, and taught himself virtually unaided as a composer.

He delighted in hanging out in Parisian bars and cafés as one of a loose composer collective dubbed 'Les Six' (alongside Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Germaine Tailleferre), a gang that idolised Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau for their iconoclastic aesthetics, and gleefully stuck two fingers up at the serious-minded refinement of the French impressionist composers who had preceded them (though Poulenc maintained a quiet reverence for Claude Debussy).

Francis Poulenc

Louise Farrenc

Poulenc merrily pilfered influences from the music hall and the circus, from boulevard cafés and friteries, blending his sarcastic satire with a deep thread of heart-on-sleeve sentimentality, both sides exquisitely delivered with sophistication and

include a Sonata for clarinet and bassoon, another for horn, trumpet and trombone, and a Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano.

impeccable craftsmanship. Indeed, Poulenc succeeded in transforming the unabashed sentimentality of his earlier music into something entirely sincere and genuinely moving in many of his later works, often his religious music. Raised a devout Catholic, he returned to explore his faith anew in works such as his solemn Stabat Mater and his deeply moving opera Dialogues des Carmélites, about the gruesome fate of a group of nuns during the French Revolution.

Poulenc’s Sextet, however, comes from decades earlier, and is as lighthearted and satirical as anything he wrote. Its instrumentation is unusual, but reflects Poulenc’s early predilection for the piercing distinctiveness of wind instruments over the

and sentimentality to energetic effect, contrasting a bustling opening theme with a second main melody, initially on piano, of indulgent sentimentality. The elegant second movement – a ‘Divertissement’ – seems to overtly reference (or even take the mickey out of) Mozart’s famous C major Piano Sonata, with a sprightly middle section providing comic relief.

The finale is just as cheeky as the first movement and includes more than one knowing nod to Stravinsky (its opening could come straight from The Rite of Spring). But after all its dashing, insolent invention, it closes with a surprisingly calm, thoughtful apotheosis that rises above the madness that’s gone before, as if Poulenc is saying: you see, there was a serious point

velvety blend of strings: other early works

to this all along.

Following a rushing call to attention, the first movement mixes jazziness

We remain in Paris, but jump back in time almost a century for Louise Farrenc’s Nonet of 1849. Although Farrenc’s music has been

equal pay. Ironically, her gender had itself already played a certain role in establishing Farrenc’s standing: audiences were

gaining a little more recognition in recent years, she remains a shamefully neglected figure, but was widely celebrated in her time (famously as the ‘female Beethoven’). And more than any work, it was her Nonet that established her reputation.

intrigued to hear what a female composer might produce, and then surprised and convinced by the powerful, passionate music they experienced. When it came to her Nonet, however, it no doubt helped that one of the period’s most illustrious musicians – violinist Joseph Joachim – led the 1850 premiere. That aside, it’s a fascinating, rewarding piece, and one that exploits its unusual forces – a wind quintet, plus violin, viola, cello and double bass – for both their quasi-orchestral richness and their chamber focus.

Like Poulenc, Farrenc came from a wellto-do Parisian family, but unlike Poulenc’s, it was a family steeped in culture and the arts: her forebears had included painters and sculptors to the royal court stretching back to the 17th century. She was thereby actively encouraged to pursue her musical passions, studying with luminaries of the time, including Hummel and Moscheles for piano, and Reicha for composition. She met her husband, the composer and flautist Aristide Farrenc, while performing at a private Parisian soirée, and he encouraged her activities further, also introducing her to the likes of Auber and Halévy, Berlioz and Schumann.

It was only with the birth of their daughter Victorine in 1826 that Farrenc made the decision to end her career as a travelling piano soloist, and to concentrate instead on teaching and composition. She became a professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire in 1842 – and was in fact the only women to be gain a professorship at that institution in the whole of the 19th century. Even then, she at first had to tolerate a salary barely half that of her male colleagues, until she argued successfully for parity.

And it was – indirectly, at least – the widespread success of her Nonet that helped establish Farrenc’s reputation, thereby adding weight to her demands for

The first movement is the Nonet’s longest.

Following a majestic, sonorous opening, its main faster section – kicked off by an easy-going theme on the violin – displays remarkable charm and spirit, and the violin returns for a miniature cadenza just before its conclusion. The supposed ‘slow’ movement is surprisingly brisk, with an elegant, Mozartean theme on the violin put through five subsequent variations: the first on oboe, the second shared between violin and viola, the third on bassoon, the fourth opening on horn, and a final section kicked off by the double bass. The third movement is a dark, devilish scherzo with hints of Berlioz (whose own Symphonie fantastique was premiered a couple of decades earlier), and whose lighter, brighter trio section has a simpler, more rustic feel. Farrenc’s finale again opens nobly with a sense of expectation, but when its main theme arrives it’s just as genial as that of the opening movement, and Farrenc ensures a sunny outlook throughout the movement’s abundant invention. © David Kettle

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