Instrumentation
Piano (2) Orchestra
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Musical Terms (4)
- Concerto pour deux pianos, FP 61 frConcerto for two pianos and orchestra in D minor, composed summer 1932. Commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac, it was premiered in Venice in September 1932 with the composer and Jacques Fevrier as soloists. The work is famous for its central Larghetto, where Poulenc fuses the memory of Mozart with the hypnotic shimmer of Balinese gamelan music he had heard at the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris. The result is one of the most beautiful slow movements in the French concerto repertoire.The two soloists must function as a single instrument with two players. Balance is critical: the secondary piano should not dominate even when it has the main line. In the Larghetto, cultivate an ethereal, sustained tone — the movement should seem to float. In the outer movements, rhythmic precision between the two pianos is as important as individual tonal quality.
- Concerto pour deux pianos, FP 61 frConcerto for two pianos and orchestra in D minor, composed summer 1932. Commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac, it was premiered in Venice in September 1932 with the composer and Jacques Fevrier as soloists. The work is famous for its central Larghetto, where Poulenc fuses the memory of Mozart with the hypnotic shimmer of Balinese gamelan music he had heard at the 1931 Colonial Exposition in Paris. The result is one of the most beautiful slow movements in the French concerto repertoire.The two soloists must function as a single instrument with two players. Balance is critical: the secondary piano should not dominate even when it has the main line. In the Larghetto, cultivate an ethereal, sustained tone — the movement should seem to float. In the outer movements, rhythmic precision between the two pianos is as important as individual tonal quality.
- Les Six enA loose association of six French composers — Poulenc, Honegger, Milhaud, Auric, Durey, and Tailleferre — grouped by the critic Henri Collet in 1920 under the influence of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau. They shared a reaction against both Wagnerian heaviness and Impressionist vagueness, favouring wit, clarity, economy, and everyday subject matter.In performance, Les Six aesthetics often translate to a certain deliberate dryness: avoid over-pedalling, keep textures clear, resist the urge to inflect every phrase romantically. Irony and understatement are as expressive as full emotional intensity.
- Les Six enA loose association of six French composers — Poulenc, Honegger, Milhaud, Auric, Durey, and Tailleferre — grouped by the critic Henri Collet in 1920 under the influence of Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau. They shared a reaction against both Wagnerian heaviness and Impressionist vagueness, favouring wit, clarity, economy, and everyday subject matter.In performance, Les Six aesthetics often translate to a certain deliberate dryness: avoid over-pedalling, keep textures clear, resist the urge to inflect every phrase romantically. Irony and understatement are as expressive as full emotional intensity.