Francis Poulenc

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Mélodies Françaises

This CD presents a collection of French art songs – mélodies - covering a wide range of emotional and stylistic content from Fauré to Ibert. The French declamatory style emphasizes the text rather than the melody, but it is the piano part where the beauty of the music can shine through, both in the rich textures employed and in the special harmonies. This is particularly evident in the songs by Henri Duparc. The three songs by Ravel were his last works. Carlo Colombara has been a regular guest at the leading opera houses in Italy and abroad. He has worked with the most renowned conductors, such as Sir Colin Davis, Carlo Maria Giulini, Vladimir Jurowski, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Sir Georg Solti. Critics in Italy and abroad have praised his stylistic versatility and the dark timbre and the colourful diversity of Colombara’s voice makes him one of the most sought-after basses of our time.

Poulenc, Faure & Ravel - Violin Sonatas

French chamber music from the time of the Third Republic is remarkable for its tremendous stylistic variety, revealing, as it does, not only Neoclassical elements but also unexpected rhythms, the sort of local colour associated with folk music and, last but not least, typically French melodies typified by their elegance and songlike character.A classic example of this style is Fauré's Violin Sonata, first performed in 1877, inspired by the Belgian violinist Hubert Léonard and now at the very heart of the new CD that Arabella Steinbacher has recorded with the pianist Robert Kulek.Written half a century later, Ravel's Violin Sonata not only places considerable technical demands on its performers, it also reflects the influence of jazz, an influence explored by the two performers with audible delight in imitating plucked instruments and blue notes.The dizzying energy generated by Steinbacher and Kulek in Ravel's Tzigane needs to be heard to be believed.This homogeneous and yet varied programme opens with a piece that may also be regarded as an epilogue to this chapter from the history of French music: Francis Poulenc's Violin Sonata was written in the 1940s in memory of Federico García Lorca and is a compact work in terms of its expressive and compositional density. Arabella Steinbacher and Robert Kulek bring to it all the necessary shades and nuances.

Poulenc - Gloria and Motets

Stephen Layton and Polyphony continue to blaze a trail as great interpreters and dazzling performers of a wide range of choral music. Their recent disc of Bruckner’s Mass in E minor and motets was acclaimed as a benchmark recording. For their latest Hyperion disc they turn to some of the most bewitching and unusual, yet well-loved, choral works of the twentieth century. Poulenc’s choral music is a deep expression both of his faith and of his unique musical language. In the various motets, the music responds to the composer’s studies of Bach, Monteverdi, Palestrina and Gabrieli, but is always stylistically progressive. Prominently featured are Poulenc’s distinctive and often ingenious chord progressions. Each motet has its own delightfully etched personality. Poulenc’s Gloria is one of his most enduringly appealing works. In some ways straightforwardly pious, it is also tinged with mischievous irreverence and a sense of rollocking enjoyment. ‘When I wrote this piece’, Poulenc famously recalled, ‘I had in mind those frescoes by Gozzoli where the angels stick out their tongues; and also some serious Benedictine monks I had once seen revelling in a game of football.’ This recording by the Britten Sinfonia, The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, Polyphony and the soprano soloist Susan Gritton under Stephen Layton brings out all these aspects in a classic performance.

Horn

The Fibonacci Sequence, now well established as one of the foremost chamber ensembles in Britain. Composed of musicians of international repute, the Fibonancci Sequence is distinguished by the variety and imagination of its programming. Here, they explore the repertoire for horn with founder member and renowned horn player Stephen Stirling with an international reputation as a chamber musician. The repertoire on this disc presents Richard Strauss' symphonic tone poem 'Till Eulenspiegels’, the beguiling ‘Idyll for horn and string quartet’ by Alexander Glazunov, Mozart’s Quintet in Eb KV407 (386c) for horn and strings with the unique scoring pairing violas rather than two violins, Koechlin’s ‘Four Pieces’ (or tiny vignettes) for horn, violin and piano, the beautiful oddity 'Serenata in Vano' for cello, double bass, clarinet, bassoon and horn by Carl Nielsen and Poulenc’s uniquely scored Sonata for horn, trumpet and trombone.

Pièces à deux pianos

recorded 1999 in the cathedral Laon on the occasion of Poulenc's centenary

Régine Crespin

Recorded: Geneva, September 1963; Kingsway Hall, May 1967

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