Concertos

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) is not an easy composer to relate to. Not the man himself perhaps - though possibly that too - but his music. It is somehow dated. Here is a composer who produced his best works, all more or less completely tonal, at a time when Arnold Schoenberg was writing twelve-tone music and Poulenc's countrymen Oliver Messiaen (1908-1992) and Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) were into innovative rhythms, scales and techniques to lift the music out of the realm of subjective emotionalism. One of Poulenc's most splendid works, Gloria, from 1959, was composed two years after Boulez's third piano sonata. The two works have nothing in common other than that they both consist of notes and belong to what is called the European music tradition. What's more, I am reasonably certain that Gloria has many more listeners than the third piano sonata of Boulez, quite simply because this melodious choral work is more accessible.