Francis Poulenc

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France (1899 – 1963)

Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (January 7, 1899 - January 30, 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French Group Les Six.

He was a Parisian by birth and death, and always preferred the city to the country. His mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play, and music formed a part of family life.

Poulenc was a member of Les Six, a group of young French composers, Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, Arthur Honegger and Germaine Tailleferre, who also had links with Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau. He embraced the movement’s techniques, creating melodies that would have been appropriate for Parisian music halls. An outstanding pianist, Poulenc featured the keyboard in many of his early compositions. He also, throughout his career, borrowed from his own compositions as well as those of Mozart and Camille Saint-Saëns.

He composed music in all major genres, including art song, chamber music, oratorio, opera, ballet music and orchestral music. Among Poulenc’s last series of major works is a series of works for Winds and Piano. He was particularly fond of the woodwind instruments, and planned a set of sonatas for all of them, yet only lived to complete four: the Flute Sonata (1956), and sonatas for oboe, clarinet and horn.

Poulenc’s Rapsodie nègre (1917), written for baritone, piano, string quartet, flute, and clarinet, sets nonsense syllables purportedly by a black Liberian poet.
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  • Bacteria4

    I think whoever composed the Apocalypse now soundtrack must have listened to his Concerto for Organ. Quite a few similarities

    January 2012
  • Aotus

    I'm looking for the 1957 Flute Sonata, can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

    April 2011
  • yu00

    Such a great composer, I particularly love his organ concerto and his sinfonietta

    March 2011
  • ConkertheKing

    Playing the double piano concerto in our orchestra. good stuff!

    September 2010
  • Zlotythepoet

    Ou sont les "animaux modeles"? :(

    May 2010
  • Crashnodarfan

    Sombre nuit, aveugles ténèbres, Fuyez; Le jour s'approche et l'Olympe blanchit

    April 2010
  • theo_equis

    poulenc is where it's at

    March 2010
  • oseland

    ha, poo-long.

    February 2010
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