Program Notes

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano (1926)

Notes for: July 17, 2012

Francis Poulenc is now considered one of the twentieth century’s leading French composers, but there is some irony in that assessment. During the first 50 years of his life, there was a tendency in professional musical circles to downgrade his music. In a period of atonality and other experimentation, he wrote in a simple language accessible to unsophisticated listeners. “I know perfectly well,” he wrote in 1942, “that I’m not one of those composers who have made harmonic innovations like Igor (Stravinsky), Ravel or Debussy, but I think there’s room for new music that doesn’t mind other people’s chords.”

But since World War II, musicians and critics have had second and more favorable thoughts about Poulenc’s contribution. To a great extent, this reassessment has been spurred by the power of The Dialogues of the Carmelites, his opera about a group of doomed nuns in the French Revolution, which has become a staple of the opera repertory. But a number of his other works -- the Concert Champêtre for harpsichord and orchestra, his piano pieces, his instrumental sonatas and chamber music, and his songs -- also assure him a permanent place in 20th century music.

Poulenc first won recognition as a member of Les Sixes, the group of rebellious French composers that also included Darius Milhaud. The group’s primary bond was a common reaction against the emotionality of César Franck and his disciples and the impressionism of Debussy and Ravel. These French composers, in the group’s judgment, had abandoned the classic French principles of restraint and clarity.

To restore these Gallic elements, each member of Les Sixes went his or her own way. Poulenc’s style can perhaps best be defined by another statement he made about himself: “I’m a melancholy person who loves to laugh like all melancholy persons.” As suggested by this paradox, there are two contradictory strains in his music -- one of wit, even sardonic humor and irony; the other of melancholy, even tragedy as in The Dialogues of the Carmelites. Beyond these conflicting strains, his music is marked by the use of spare harmony and dissonance, a search for new combinations of instrumental sound, a sense of elegance, and a gift for melody.

All of these traits are reflected in Poulenc’s Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, his first major chamber music work. Written in 1926, it was dedicated to Manuel de Falla, the great Spanish nationalist composer, “to prove to him for better or for worse my tender admiration.”

The witty side of Poulenc’s musical personality dominates the first and third movements, while the middle movement has a melancholy cast. In general, the piano carries most of the musical burden, but the two winds provide essential tonal coloration. Thus, in the first and third movements, Poulenc uses the dry tones of the oboe and bassoon to express his dry, ironic humor, and in the slow movement he uses the same instruments for the more soulful passages.

The first movement starts with a short opera-like recitative, the piano opening emphatically with the bassoon and oboe setting the mood. This is followed by an exuberant presto, mainly in the style of Italian operatic comedy but with a tender middle section.

The second movement, andante con moto, is an extended song, rising to some intensity toward the middle. The finale, très vif, is a rondo, with a slightly sardonic edge and an unexpected ending.

Copyright © 2012 by Willard J. Hertz

Notes for: August 7, 2018

Francis Poulenc was a man of contradictions. He was both a hedonist and a deeply religious Catholic. He could write witty melodies that would be at home in a Parisian music hall, as well as sacred music inspired by his faith (the latter included his great opera Dialogues of the Carmelites). He was a manic-depressive, and even his most happy-go-lucky music at times had darker undercurrents. His friend the French critic Claude Rostand said, “In Poulenc there is something of the monk and something of the hooligan.” Or as the American composer Ned Rorem put it, Poulenc was “always interlocking soul and flesh.”

Poulenc burst onto the Parisian musical scene when, at the age of 18, he wrote Rapsodie nègre for baritone and chamber ensemble, a work that turned him into an overnight sensation in France. His ballet Les Biches, which Diaghilev staged in 1924, cemented his reputation. His close musical colleagues and friends – Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honneger, Darius Milhaud, and Germaine Tailleferre, a group who, along with Poulenc, were dubbed Les Six – were anti-Impressionists and anti-Romantics who admired Satie and Cocteau and advocated clarity and simplicity in music. Influenced by Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism and Satie’s irreverent wit, Poulenc’s secular music was distinguished by color, tunefulness, glitter, urbanity, and most of all, a sense of fun.

The Neoclassical qualities of simplicity and balance, plus plenty of humor, infuse Poulenc’s sparkling Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, one of his earliest chamber works. “I worked on it a lot,” he reported; “It’s in a style new to me yet at the same time very Poulenc.” Taking his teacher Ravel’s advice, Poulenc modeled the Trio on the works of earlier composers whom he admired. In addition to following a Classical fast-slow-fast format, he noted that “the first movement follows the plan of a Haydn allegro and the final Rondo that of the scherzo from the second movement of Saint-Saëns’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.”

The Trio begins with a series of sober, dissonant piano chords that neither the bassoon nor the oboe is willing to take quite seriously, after which the three instruments break out into a spirited gambol, with the two winds cavorting over jazzy piano chords. After a middle section highlighted by the oboe’s long lyrical lines, frivolity returns to end the movement. The Andante, which Poulenc described as “sweet and melancholic,” is a lovely, Mozart-like slow movement that showcases Poulenc’s considerable melodic gifts. A brisk Rondo, bright and brimming with panache, brings the Trio to a joyful close. Poulenc was pleased with the work, writing to Claude Rostand, “I quite like my Trio because it comes over clearly and is well balanced.”

Copyright © 2018 by Barbara Leish

Notes for: August 2, 2022

Francis Poulenc was a man of contradictions. He was both a hedonist and a deeply religious Catholic. He could write witty melodies that would be at home in a Parisian music hall, as well as sacred music inspired by his faith (the latter included his great opera Dialogues of the Carmelites). He was a manic-depressive, and even his most happy-go-lucky music at times had darker undercurrents. The French critic Claude Rostand wrote that Poulenc “always placed great value on being regarded as light, charming, frivolous, and flip. He loved risqué jokes and a Rabelaisian way of life….But behind this spontaneity, this easy and ironic cutting up, was hidden much inner turmoil.” As Rostand said, “In Poulenc there is something of the monk and something of the hooligan.”

Poulenc burst onto the Parisian musical scene when, at the age of 18, he wrote Rapsodie nègre for baritone and chamber ensemble, a work that turned him into an overnight sensation in France. His ballet Les Biches, which Diaghilev staged in 1924, cemented his reputation. Poulenc wrote prolifically, giving particular attention to art songs with piano accompaniment, sacred music, and chamber works, especially for wind instruments. Influenced by Stravinsky’s Neoclassicism and Satie’s irreverent wit, Poulenc’s secular music was distinguished by color, tunefulness, glitter, urbanity, and most of all, a sense of fun.

The Neoclassical qualities of simplicity and balance, plus plenty of humor, infuse Poulenc’s sparkling Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, one of his earliest chamber works. Taking his teacher Ravel’s advice, Poulenc modeled the Trio on the works of earlier composers whom he admired. In addition to following a Classical fast-slow-fast format, he noted that “the first movement follows the plan of a Haydn allegro and the final Rondo that of the scherzo from the second movement of Saint-Saëns’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.” The Trio begins with a series of sober, dissonant piano chords that neither the bassoon nor the oboe is willing to take quite seriously, after which the three instruments break out into a spirited gambol, with the two winds cavorting over jazzy piano chords. After a middle section highlighted by the oboe’s long lyrical lines, frivolity returns to end the movement. The Andante, which Poulenc described as “sweet and melancholic,” is a lovely, Mozart-like slow movement that showcases Poulenc’s considerable melodic gifts. A brisk Rondo, bright and brimming with panache, brings the Trio to a joyful close.

Copyright © 2022 by Barbara Leish