Poulenc's cantata Le Bal Masqué (for Baritone or Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Orchestra) is written to texts by the poet Max Jacob, whose work can be seen as closely approaching surrealism; it dates from 1932. The instrumentation is strongly...

REPRINT SERIES Poulenc's Concert Champêtre for Harpsichord (or Piano) and Orchestra was written in 1927–28 for the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska who said she "adored" playing it as it made her "insouciant and gay!" Landowska was responsible...

REPRINT SERIES Les Animaux modèles, FP 111, is a ballet dating from 1940 to 1942 with music by Francis Poulenc. It was the third and final ballet that he composed and was staged at the Paris Opéra in 1942, with choreography by Serge Lifar,...

REPRINT SERIES The Gloria by Francis Poulenc, FP 177, scored for soprano solo, large orchestra, and chorus, is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass ordinary. One of Poulenc's most celebrated works, it was commissioned by the Koussevitsky...

In 1919 the premiere of Le Bestiaire on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (with Suzanne Peignot, friend and first interpreter of the composer’s mélodies). 6 movements: I. Le dromadaire II. Le chèvre du Thibet III. La sauterelle IV...

REPRINT SERIES Litanies à la Vierge noire (French pronunciation: ​[litani a la vjɛʁʒ nwɑʁ]; "Litany to the Black Virgin"), FP 82, is a piece of sacred music composed by Francis Poulenc in 1936 for a three-part choir of women (or children) and...

Aubade, a choreographic concerto for piano and 18 instruments, is a work of Francis Poulenc premiered in 1929. It was conceived as a ballet, but is more often played as a chamber piano concerto. An aubade is a morning courting song, vs. a serenade in...

Poulenc's Organ Concerto has become one of the most frequently performed pieces of the genre not written in the Baroque period. The piece uses such comparatively small forces, relative to Poulenc's other concertos (the Concert champêtre used a...

 The music is light, even at times satirical, and overflowing with popular turns and dance rhythms. (Ravel is said to have admitted to Poulenc that he envied his ability to “write his own folksongs.”)  It is in four movements:...

Poulenc: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in C-Sharp minor FP 146I. AllegrettoII. Andante con motoIII. Rondeau à la française   Although cast in three movements, it is a world away from the classical concerto. This is largely on...

Often described as the last work of Poulenc’s early period, the composer himself wrote to the Belgian musicologist Paul Collaer: "You will see for yourself what an enormous step forward it is from my previous work and that I am really entering my...

This charming suite bears the subtitle d'après Claude Gervaise (16e siècle) and displays Poulenc's inimitable blend of the archaic and the anarchic. The suite lasts approximately 12 minutes and has 7 movements:1. Bransle de Bourgogne2...