Véronique Gens: The complete "Banalités FP. 107" (Poulenc)

Banalités (FP. 107):
I. Chansons d'Orkenise 00:00
II. Hôtel 01:23
III. Fagnes de Wallonies 03:23
IV. Voyage à Paris 04:53
V. Sanglots 05:49

Poulenc, Francis (1899-1963) -composer
Véronique Gens -soprano
Roger Vignoles -piano

Score: http://petruccilibrary.ca/linkhandler.php?path=/imglnks/caimg/f/fd/IMSLP309019-PMLP499581-Poulenc_-_Banalit__s.pdf

Playlist "The art of French song: Faure, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Satie...": http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdM8VSWYvcWGecjk_VR0LNMYlVs05efWQ

Poulenc later wrote that he had long planned to set "Sanglots" and "Fagnes de Wallonie." Then he reread "Hôtel" and "Voyage à Paris" in old literary journals he had saved since his teenage years and decided the time was right. The absolute silliness of the latter poem delighted him, and the appeal of a text like "Hôtel" is obvious. Poulenc handles these two songs deftly. Surely nothing could be more luxuriantly indolent than the setting of "Hôtel"; the last four chords evaporate into the air like a curl of tobacco smoke. "Voyage à Paris" is an example of Poulenc at his most carnivalesque, with its bawdy, clownish introduction and its vocal line that can only be called a tune even though it is not without chromatic quirkiness. The heaths of "Fagnes de Wallonie" are found in Belgium, on a high, windswept plateau. Poulenc's setting for this somewhat fierce text flies by, as he himself notes at the beginning, "extremely quickly, in a single bound." The proto-surrealist scene at the Orkenise city gates where the handsome guards proudly knit elicits a setting Poulenc notes as "frank, in a folk-song style." Its skipping duplet articulation in the right hand of the piano is repeated in "Fagnes de Wallonie," while at the words, "Love intoxicates, carter," Poulenc doubles the vocal line in an inner part of the accompaniment just as he later does in "Sanglots." Such transient, almost hidden doublings are frequent elements of Poulenc's songs. "Sanglots" is arguably one of Poulenc's most moving vocal pieces. Following on the heels of the flamboyant finale of "Voyage à Paris," its beginning (marked "very calm") is clear and wistful. As the speaker recalls his heartbreak, as well as the joyous times that preceded it, the setting gradually grows in depth and intensity, exchanging a thinly "scored" accompaniment for one of great density and harmonic richness. Poulenc's profound love for the poetry of Apollinaire and others of his generation translated into a sophisticated and sensitive ability to set that poetry to music in ways that both honor and illuminate the texts.

Source: http://www.allmusic.com/composition/banalit%C3%A9s-song-cycle-for-voice-piano-fp-107-mc0002387406

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