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Francis Poulenc 1899–1963

Francis Poulenc, the composer and pianist, died in Paris on Jan 30, aged 64. He was born in Paris in 1899, and was musically self-taught apart from some study with Ricardo Viñes and Koechlin. His music was first heard publicly at a concert organized by Satie, 1918 – the year he composed the Movements Perpétuels. Le Bestiaire (Apollinaire) and Cocardes (Cocteau), both 1919, were the first of many song-cycles which form the heart of Poulenc’s output. From 1936 these were devised for his close artistic association with the baritone Pierre Bernac. Outstanding among later sets is Tel jour telle nuit (Eluard).

His instrumental music includes piano suites and keyboard concertos – for harpsichord (1927-8), two pianos (1932) and organ (1938). The ballet score Les Biches (1924) and the opera-bouffe Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1947) display the ironic self-awareness contained in the aesthetic of Les Six, of whom Poulenc was one. Under the sophisticated manner often lay simple, serious intent, made explicit in the liturgical a cappella works. Poulenc’s most ambitious work, the opera Dialogues des Carmelites, commissioned by Ricordi for La Scala, was produced there in 1957 and quickly reached other opera houses – Covent Garden in 1958.

Lennox Berkeley writes:

By the death of Francis Poulenc we lose a composer of a type that is rare today, for his talent was above all natural and spontaneous. He never sought to bring anything new to music other than the novelty of his own personality, and wrote unashamedly as he felt, paying little heed to musical fashion in so far as his own work was concerned. All through his life, he was content to use conventional harmony, but his use of it was so individual, so immediately recognizable as his own, that it gave his music freshness and validity. It was as song-writer that he was at his best. He wrote something in the region of 150 songs; in them his melodic invention, his power of expressing subtle and intimate feeling, together with a natural ability for the musical treatment of words and prosody, are everywhere in evidence; also the fact that he was an excellent pianist enabled him to make his piano parts exceptionally interesting and effective. His favourite poets for setting to music were Apollinaire, with whom he had a special affinity, Eluard and Louise de Vilmorin. Even his best songs are too numerous to mention individually, and it is sad to think that they are as yet so little known in this country.

Apart from his songs, his most significant compositions are perhaps his religious works. He was deeply attached to the Christian faith, and religious texts stimulated his imagination. His only full-scale opera is based on a religious theme, and such works as the Litanies de la Vierge Noire, the Mass, the Four Motets and the Stabat Mater are among his major compositions. His very harmonic style (counterpoint plays hardly any part in his music) gives a curious character to his choral writing, and presents some difficulty in the matter of intonation, but it remains effective. There are many passages in his religious music that are strangely haunting – moments that reveal a touching tenderness and simplicity of heart, and that remain in the memory.

The gaiety and frivolity of much of his early music gained him a reputation as a wit and parodist, but his music of this period was written at a time of reaction against romanticism and impressionism, and represents only one side of his musical character; nevertheless, the exuberance and vitality of some of these early pieces have kept them alive. Later we find more frequently a prevailing mood of serene contentment, varied by a gentle nostalgia, and a reaching towards a wider emotional range, but he lacked the power of large-scale musical construction, and wrote little symphonic music.

To those of us who knew him well, his death deals a double blow, for apart from his music, he was a most lovable character and a very loyal friend. Moreover he was very good company, he had immense charm, gaiety, and a zest for life that was infectious. As in his music, he was uninhibited in conversation, and his social gifts enabled him to carry off any situation with ease. Unlike some artists, he was genuinely interested in other people’s work, and surprisingly appreciative of music very far removed from his. I remember him playing me the records of Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maître with which he was already familiar when that work was much less well-known than it is today.

Poulenc was fond of England, he had many friends here, and used to come regularly to give concerts with Pierre Bernac. Though a Parisian by birth, Touraine was the part of France he loved best, and he spent part of every year in his house near the banks of the Loire, attracted, one feels, to this peaceful and fertile countryside by qualities that in some ways resembled his own.

Musical Times, March 1963