Francis Poulenc

Play Radio

438,636 plays (80,980 listeners)

Shop now at Amazon | Send Francis Poulenc Ringtones to Cell
More options
Add to my Library

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.
Read more… Edit

Shouts: 24 shouts

Share this artist:

Top Albums

See more

Top Tracks

1
72
2
71
3
62
4
52
5
47
6
46
7
44
8
33
9
23
10
22
11
21
11
21
13
20
13
20
15
19
Buy all tracks at Amazon MP3
See more

Shoutbox

Leave a comment. Log in to Last.fm or sign up (it’s free).
See all 24 shouts

Videos

Top Listeners

See more

Recent Activity

Related Journals

See more

More Information

Links
Labels