Poulenc (FRE) (1 déc. 1899 – 1 nov 1963)

Description:

Poulenc is best known for his inventive and strangely beautiful melodies. This is the virtue of his composition that receives the
most acclaim from critics, especially as one of the more “innovative” facets of his compositional language.


“Poulenc never questioned the supremacy of the tonal-modal system. Chromaticism in his music is never more than
passing, even if he used the diminished 7th more than any leading composer since Verdi. Texturally, rhythmically,
harmonically, he was not particularly inventive. For him the most important element of all was melody and he found his
way to a vast treasury of undiscovered tunes within an area that had, according to the most up-to-date musical maps,
been surveyed, worked and exhausted. His definitive statement came perhaps in a letter of 1942: ‘I know perfectly well
that I'm not one of those composers who have made harmonic innovations like Igor [Stravinsky], Ravel or Debussy, but I
think there's room for new music which doesn't mind using other people's chords. Wasn't that the case with
Mozart–Schubert?’. And if Poulenc was not quite a Schubert, he is among the 20th century's most eligible candidates for
the succession.” (Nichols, Grove)"

We examined his Motets

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