Composer of the Week: Poulenc

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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): Fils à papa

Fils à papa

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), Fils à papa

Poulenc: pampered child or Parisian prodigy?

From childhood, Poulenc was exposed to two versions of Paris, one that was working-class and religious, another that was high society, secular and avant-garde.

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 first programme, Donald Macleod discovers how, from childhood, Poulenc was exposed to two versions of Paris that were diametrically opposed, and how he created his own strange mythology with his bizarre public debut… 

Piano Concerto in C-Sharp Minor, FP 146: I. Allegretto commodo
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor

Sonata for Piano 4 Hands
Francois Chaplin and Alexandre Tharaud, piano

Trois Mouvements Perpétuels
Francis Poulenc, piano

4 Préludes
National Orchestra of France
Charles Dutoit, conductor

Gnossiennes
National Orchestra of France
Charles Dutoit, conductor

Melancolie
Aleck Karis, piano

Rapsodie Nègre 
Badke Quartet

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

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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.

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Composer of the Week

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)

Fils à papa

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