Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Francis Poulenc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (IPA: [fʀɑ̃sis ʒɑ̃ maʀsɛl pulɛ̃k]; January 7, 1899–January 30, 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed music in all major genres, including art song, chamber music, oratorio, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music. Critic Claude Rostand, in a July 1950 Paris-Presse article, described Poulenc as "half bad boy, half monk" ("le moine et le voyou"), a tag that was to be attached to his name for the rest of his career.[1]
Contents |
Poulenc was born in Paris. His mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play, and music formed a part of family life. An outstanding pianist,[2] the keyboard dominated much of his early compositions. He also, throughout his career, borrowed from his own compositions as well as those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Camille Saint-Saëns. Later in his life, the loss of some close friends, coupled with a pilgrimage to the Black Madonna of Rocamadour, led him to rediscovery of the Catholic faith and resulted in compositions of a more sombre, austere tone.
Poulenc was a member of Les Six, a group of young French composers, Milhaud, Auric, Durey, Honegger and Tailleferre, who also had links with Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau. He embraced the Dada movement's techniques, creating melodies that would have challenged what was considered appropriate for Parisian music halls.
He was already identified with this group before he undertook his first formal musical training, with Charles Koechlin in 1921.[3]
Among Poulenc's last series of major works is a series of works for wind instruments and piano. He was particularly fond of woodwinds, and planned a set of sonatas for all of them, yet only lived to complete four: sonatas for flute, oboe, clarinet, and the Elégie for horn.
Poulenc died of heart failure in Paris in 1963.
Poulenc was one of the first openly gay composers.[4] His first serious relationship was with painter Richard Chanlaire to whom he dedicated his Concert champêtre: "You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working."[1] He also once said, "You know that I am as sincere in my faith, without any messianic screamings, as I am in my Parisian sexuality."[5]
Poulenc also had a number of relationships with women. He fathered a daughter, Marie-Ange, although he never formally admitted that he was indeed her father. He was also a very close friend of the singer Pierre Bernac for whom he wrote many songs; some sources[citation needed] have hinted that this long friendship had sexual undertones; however, the now-published correspondence between the two men strongly suggests that this was not the case.
Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of friends.[citation needed] First came the death of the young woman he had hoped to marry, Raymonde Linossier. While Poulenc admitted to having no sexual interest in Linossier, they had been lifelong friends.[6] Then, in 1923 he was "unable to do anything" for two days after the death from typhoid fever of his twenty year old friend, novelist Raymond Radiguet. However, two weeks later he had moved on, joking to Sergei Diaghilev at the rehearsals he was unable to leave, about helping a dancer "warm up".[1] In 1936, Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of another composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who was decapitated in an automobile accident. This led him to his first visit to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. Here, before the statue of the Madonna with a young child on her lap, Poulenc experienced a life-changing transformation. Thereafter his work took on more religious themes, beginning with the Litanies à la vierge noire (1936). In 1949, Poulenc experienced the death of another friend, the artist Christian Bérard, for whom he composed his Stabat Mater (1950). Other sacred works from this period include the Mass in G (1937), Gloria (1959), and Sept répons des ténèbres (1961–2).
|
Chamber Music:
Operas:
|
Other works:
|
- Chanson à boire (TTBB) (1922)
- Sept chansons (SATB) (1936)
- Litanies à la vierge noire (SSA, org) (1936), orchestrated (1947)
- Petites voix (SSA) (1936)
- Mass in G (SATB) (1937)
- Sécheresses (chorus, orchestra) (1937)
- Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence (SATB): "Vinea mea electa", (1938); "Tenebrae factae sunt", (1938); "Tristis est anima mea", (1938); "Timor et tremor", (1939)
- Exultate Deo (SATB) (1941)
- Salve regina (SATB) (1941)
- Figure humaine (12 voices) (1943)
- Un soir de neige (6 voices) (1944)
- Chansons françaises: "Margoton va t'a l'iau", (SATB)(1945); "La belle se siet au pied de la tour" (SATBarB) (1945); "Pilons l'orgue" (SATBarB) (1945); "Clic, clac, dansez sabots" (TBB) (1945); "C'est la petit' fill' du prince" (SATBarB) (1946); "La belle si nous étions" (TBB) (1946); "Ah! Mon beau laboureur" (SATB) (1945); "Les tisserands" (SATBarB) (1946)
- Quatre petites prières de Saint François d'Assise (Men's chorus) (1948)
- Stabat Mater (Soprano solo, SATB divisi, orchestra )(1950)
- Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël (Mixed chorus): "O magnum mysterium" (1952); "Quem vidistis pastores?" (1951); "Videntes stellam" (1951); "Hodie Christus natus est" (1952)
- Ave verum corpus (SMezA) (1952)
- Laudes de Saint Antoine de Padoue (Men's Chorus): "O Jésu perpetua lux" (1957); "O proles hispaniae" (1958); "Laus regi plena gaudio" (1959); "Si quaeris" (1959)
- Gloria (Soprano solo, SATB divisi, orchestra) (1959)
- Sept répons des ténèbres (Child Soprano, Men's Chorus, Children's Chorus, orchestra (1961-2)
- ^ a b c Benjamin Ivry (1996). Francis Poulenc, 20th-Century Composers series. Phaidon Press Limited. ISBN 0-7148-3503-X.
- ^ Myriam Chimènes: 'Poulenc, Francis', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed [25 December 2006]), http://www.grovemusic.com
- ^ Composer profile
- ^ Champagne, Mario (2002), "Poulenc, Francis", glbtq.com, <http://www.glbtq.com/arts/poulenc_f.html>
- ^ Aldrich, Robert and Wotherspoon, Gary (Eds.) (2001). Who's Who in Contemporary Gay & Lesbian History: From World War II to the Present Day. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-22974-X.
- ^ Cite error 8; No text given.
- ^ Myriam Chimènes: 'Poulenc, Francis', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 5 May 2007), http://www.grovemusic.com
- Francis Poulenc was listed in the International Music Score Library Project
Categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements since February 2007 | 1899 births | 1963 deaths | 20th century classical composers | Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery | French composers | French Roman Catholics | Gay musicians | Les Six | LGBT composers | LGBT people from France | Opera composers | People from Paris