Poulenc: Organ Concerto & Concert champêtre

Musical Opinion

January 2000

“Here is a worthy celebration of Poulenc's Centenery, a delightful feature of last years music-making. There is buoyant reading of the popular Organ Concerto in G minor which is played on the Great Organ of Notre-Dame in Paris. Here, registrations are spicy and rhythms springy. The Concert Champetre finds Poulenc in his cheeky vein, poking fun at the pastoral tradition. Good harpsichord playing here, and excellent orchestral work and conducting both in this piece and the Suite Francaise. Deft, witty music, excellently presented”

2010

“Elisabeth Chojnacka gets off to a head start against most others who have recorded the Concertchampêtre by using the right kind of instrument: she understands that it's much sillier to play newish music on a period instrument than old music on a modern one. The effective proportions secured here between her deft playing and the orchestra also owe much to Jean-Claude Casadesus's nice sense of judgement and to the work of an excellent recording team.
It was particularly perverse of Poulenc to ask a harpsichord to contend with large brass and percussion sections and then, a decade later, employ only strings and timpani in his concerto for the intrinsically far more powerful organ; and that perversity is underlined here by using the massive organ of Notre Dame, Paris – though once again the recording technicians have skilfully succeeded in producing a string sonority that doesn't suffer beside the organ's awesome thunders. You can't help wondering whether Poulenc really had such a giant sound in mind, but it's undeniably thrilling; and the quieter moments are captured with commendable clarity and calm. From the interpretative point of view, it's quite a performance.
The wind and percussion of the Lille orchestra get a chance to demonstrate their quality in accomplished playing of the spry dances of the Suitefrançaise. This is an eminently recommendable disc.”