Wednesday, January 7, 8899

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)


Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (January 7, 1899, Paris, France - January 30, 1963) 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.

Poulenc's mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play, and music formed a part of family life. As he was a capable pianist,[ 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.



[Jean Cocteu - Francis Poulenc]

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.

Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of friends.

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.

Then, in 1923 he was "unable to do anything" for two days after the death from typhoid fever of his 20-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."

Some writers consider Poulenc one of the first openly bisexual composers.

His first serious gay relationship was with painter Richard Chanlaire to whom he dedicated his Concert champêtre (1928): "You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working."

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."

However, Poulenc's life was also one of inner struggle. Having been born and raised a Roman Catholic, he struggled between coming to terms with his unorthodox sexual appetites and maintaining his religious convictions.

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 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.

Double Piano Concerto (1933)

I. Allegro ma non troppo











II. Larghetto











III.



French Suite after Claude Gervaise (1935)



In 1936, Poulenc was profoundly affected by the death of another composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who was decapitated in an automobile accident in Hungary. 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).

Mass in G (1937)

Les Mamelles de Tiresias (The Breasts of Tiresias) (1944)



Poulenc was a featured pianist in several recordings, including some of his songs (with Pierre Bernac), in 1947, and the concerto for two pianos (recorded in May 1957).

In 1949, Poulenc experienced the death of another friend, the artist Christian Bérard, for whom he composed his Stabat Mater (1950).

Gloria (1959): Gloria









He supervised the 1961 world premiere recording of his Gloria, which was conducted by Georges Prêtre.

Sept répons des ténèbres (1962)

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.

His recordings were released by RCA Victor and EMI. Poulenc's Perpetual Motion No. 1 (1918) is used in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948).

[8899 Ellington / 8899 Poulenc / 8899 Belly Dancing]

Friday, January 2, 8899

Belly Dancing First Attested in English (1899)


[Western belly-dance instructor]

Belly dance is a Western term for a traditional Middle Eastern dance form. Some American devotees refer to it simply as "Middle Eastern Dance."



[Belly-dance costume catalogue]

In the Arabic language it is known as raqs sharqi (literally "oriental dance") or sometimes raqs baladi ("national" or "folk" dance). The term "raqs sharqi" may have originated in Egypt. In Greece and the Balkans, belly dance is called tsiftetelli .



[Belly dancer at Renaissance Faire]

The term belly-dance is a creation of Orientalism, and is first attested in English in 1899, translating French danse du ventre.



[8898 Poulenc / 8899 Belly Dancing / 8898 Gershwin]