Composer of the Week: Poulenc

Original version

BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Migrated podcast image for: Composer Of The Week

Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

Composer of the Week - Brand

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Francis Poulenc (1899-1963): Exaucez-nous

Exaucez-nous

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), Exaucez-nous

Poulenc undertakes a life-altering pilgrimage.

Poulenc leaves Paris’s exciting avant-garde social scene, and makes a life-altering pilgrimage to the shrine of Rocamadour.

Francis Poulenc was the epitome of Parisian high society: suave, convivial and connected. Or was that how he wanted us to see him? The critic Claude Rostand famously commented that Poulenc was a combination of “moine et voyou” - monk and rogue. This week, we follow the composer from Paris’s artisanal upper class heartland, to the city’s dark underbelly, discovering the moments when the monk and the rogue met face-to-face.

In today’s programme, we’ll hear how Poulenc dragged himself away from the excitement of Paris’s avant-garde social scene, and made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Rocamadour… journey that would set him on a new path entirely. 

Cello Sonata: II. Cavatine & IV. Finale
Daniel Müller-Schott, cello
Robert Kulek, piano

Les Soirées de Nazelles
Pascal Rogé, piano

Les Litanies à la Vierge Noire 
RTF Maitrise De Radio France
Orchestre National de France
Charles Dutoit, conductor 

Fiançailles Pour Rire
Natalie Dessay, soprano
Philippe Cassard, piano
Laurent Naouri, baritone

Composer of the Week: Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod looks at Poulenc's life and work in the artistic circles of Paris society.

Donald Macleod follows the composer (famously described by one critic as both 'monk and rogue') from Paris's artisanal upper class heartland, to the city's dark underbelly.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Composer of the Week

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Exaucez-nous

Genres

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3