★★★★★
ix singers, 11 instrumentalists and pianist Malcolm Martineau, the guiding force on this project, have united for the final volume of the 150-plus Poulenc songs, written over 44 years. The works here are for voice and various mixed ensembles. The opening Rapsodie Nègre (1917) reflects the young composer's keen if naive fascination with the "exotic"...
- www.theguardian.com
2015-06-28
★★★★★
Organ music sometimes appears to have a parallel existence to that of other instruments, but Poulenc's Concerto and Saint-Saëns's Symphony are firmly established in the general concert repertoire. Captured at the Pull Out All the Stops festival celebrating the refurbished organ at the Royal Festival Hall, these live performances showcase different aspects of this remarkable instrument's capabilities in tandem with orchestra...
- www.classical-music.com
2015-06-03
★★★★★
oulenc finished his Mass in G, a missa brevis (with no Credo), in 1937 and dedicated it to his father a mere 20 years after his death. It marked the composer's partial if confused return to the church, though the joie de vivre of his more hedonistic musical tastes is never far away. Characterised by ethereally high soprano lines, dense harmonies and fearless chromaticisms, the work presents extreme challenges to the a cappella choir...
- www.theguardian.com
2015-04-05
★★★★★
oulenc's opera about religious persecution in dark times has rarely been more devastating than in for Paris's Théâtre des Champs-Elysées last December. Breathtakingly conducted by , it boasts one of the finest casts ever assembled for the piece. gives the performance of a lifetime as Blanche, fleeing from the world into a convent, only to be faced with spiritual and political realities she can no longer avoid...
- www.theguardian.com
2014-12-12
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