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Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the piano suite '' Trois mouvements perpétuels'' (1919), the ballet ''Les biches'' (1923), the ''Concert champêtre'' (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera ''Dialogues des Carmélites'' (1957), and the ''Gloria'' (1959) for soprano, choir, and orchestra. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor after the composer's parents died. Poulenc also made the acquaintance of Erik Satie, under whose tutelage he became one of a group of young composers known collectively as ''Les Six''. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Voix Humaine
' (English: ''The Human Voice'') is a forty-minute, one-act opera for soprano and orchestra composed by Francis Poulenc in 1958. The work is based on the play The Human Voice, of the same name by Jean Cocteau, who, along with French soprano Denise Duval, worked closely with Poulenc in preparation for the opera's premiere. Poulenc's ' was first performed at the Opéra-Comique, Théâtre National de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris on 6 February 1959, with Duval as the solo singer and Georges Prêtre conducting; the scenery, costumes and direction were by Cocteau. The libretto consists of a woman's last phone conversation with her lover, who now loves someone else. During the call, the woman reveals that she has attempted suicide because her lover has abandoned her. History Cocteau's play Cocteau finished writing ''The Human Voice, La voix humaine'' in 1928, and the monodrama was premiered two years later. Having been previously criticized for using mechanical effects in his plays, Cocte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Biches
''Les biches'' () ("The Hinds" or "The Does", or "The Darlings") is a one-act ballet to music by Francis Poulenc, choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska and premiered by the Ballets Russes on 6 January 1924 at the Salle Garnier in Monte Carlo. Nijinska danced the central role of the Hostess. The ballet has no story, and depicts the random interactions of a group of mainly young people in a house party on a summer afternoon. The ballet was seen in Paris and London within a year of its premiere, and has been frequently revived there; it was not produced in New York until 1950. Nijinska directed revivals of the ballet for several companies in the four decades after its creation. ''Les biches'', with recreations of Marie Laurencin's original costumes and scenery, remains in the repertoire of the Paris Opera Ballet, the Royal Ballet and other companies. The music has been used for later ballets, although they have not followed Nijinska's in gaining a place in the regular repertoire. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poulenc Frères
Poulenc Frères (Poulenc Brothers) was a French chemical, pharmaceutical and photographic supplies company that had its origins in a Paris pharmacy founded in 1827. From 1852 it began to manufacture (or package) photographic chemicals. It took the name Poulenc Frères in 1881, and by 1900 had a range of high-quality products. That year it went public as the Établissements Poulenc Frères. It began production of synthetic medicines, and continued to grow during World War I (1914–18). In 1928 it merged with the Société des usines chimiques du Rhône to form Rhône-Poulenc. Origins The company can trace its roots to the Pharmacie-Droguerie Hédouin, a pharmacy founded in 1827 in the rue Saint-Merri, Paris. The baker Pierre Wittman (1798–1880) bought the store in 1845. His daughter, Pauline Wittmann (1828–1910), married Étienne Poulenc (1823–78) in February 1851. They had three sons: Gaston (1852–1948), Emile (1855–1917) and Camille (1864–1942). Etienne Poulenc was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialogues Of The Carmelites
' (''Dialogues of the Carmelites''), FP 159, is an opera in three acts, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc, completed in 1956. The composer's second opera, Poulenc wrote the libretto after the work of the same name by Georges Bernanos. The opera tells a fictionalised version of the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation. The world première of the opera occurred (in Italian translation) on 26 January 1957 at La Scala in Milan. The première of the French-language version took place in Paris on 21 June 1957. The United States première, in English, followed in San Francisco in September 1957. Development Bernanos had been hired in 1947 to write the dialogue for a film screenplay, through Raymond-Léopold Bruckberger and the scenario writer Ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dialogues Des Carmélites
' (''Dialogues of the Carmelites''), FP 159, is an opera in three acts, divided into twelve scenes with linking orchestral interludes, with music and libretto by Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-kno ..., completed in 1956. The composer's second opera, Poulenc wrote the libretto after the work of the same name by Georges Bernanos. The opera tells a fictionalised version of the story of the Martyrs of Compiègne, Carmelites, Carmelite nuns who, in 1794 during the closing days of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, were guillotined in Paris for refusing to renounce their vocation. The world première of the opera occurred (in Italian language, Italian translation) on 26 January 1957 at La Scala in Milan. The première of the French-language v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Bernac
Pierre Louis Bernac (né Bertin; 12 January 1899 – 17 October 1979) was a French singer, a baryton-martin, known as an interpreter of the French mélodie. He had a close artistic association with Francis Poulenc, with whom he performed in France and abroad. Poulenc wrote 90 songs for him during their 25-year musical partnership. Bernac was well known as a teacher; among the singers who studied with him were Elly Ameling, Grace Bumbry, Mattiwilda Dobbs, Carol Neblett, Jessye Norman and Gérard Souzay. He gave masterclasses in France, Britain and the US. In retirement, Bernac wrote two highly regarded books about the interpretation of mélodies in general and Poulenc's in particular. Life and career Early years Bertin in Paris on 12 January 1899, and started his working career in his father's brokerage house. He later changed his surname to Bernac to avoid confusion with the actor Pierre Bertin.Schmidt, p. 216 He began taking singing lessons at the age of 18, and was firs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Les Six
"Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in '' Comœdia'', (see Bibliography). Their music is often seen as a neoclassic reaction against both the musical style of Richard Wagner and the impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. The members were Georges Auric (1899–1983), Louis Durey (1888–1979), Arthur Honegger (1892–1955), Darius Milhaud (1892–1974), Francis Poulenc (1899–1963), and Germaine Tailleferre (1892–1983). ' In 1917, when many theatres and concert halls were closed because of World War I, Blaise Cendrars and the painter Moïse Kisling decided to put on concerts at 6 , the studio of the painter Émile Lejeune (1885–1964). For the first of these events, the walls of the studio were decorated with canvases by Picasso, Matisse, Léger, M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhône-Poulenc
Rhône-Poulenc () was a French chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in 1928. In 1999 it merged with Hoechst AG to form Aventis. As of 2015, the pharmaceutical operations of Rhône-Poulenc are part of Sanofi and the chemicals divisions are part of Solvay group and Bayer Crop Science. History The company was founded in 1928 through the merger of Société des usines chimiques du Rhône (Society of Rhône Chemical Factories) from Lyon and Poulenc Frères (Poulenc Brothers) from Paris founded by Étienne Poulenc, a 19th-century Parisian apothecary and brought to prominence by his second and third sons Émile, father of composer Francis Poulenc, and Camille Poulenc (1864–1942). In 1950, the company synthesized chlorpromazine which it sold to Smith, Kline & French (today part of GlaxoSmithKline) who marketed the drug as Thorazine. In 1990, it merged with the pharmaceutical company Rorer to form Rhône-Poulenc Rorer. In January 1999, Rhône-Poulenc merged with Hoechst AG to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organ Concerto (Poulenc)
The ''Concerto pour orgue, cordes et timbales'' (Concerto for organ, timpani and strings) in G minor, FP 93, is an organ concerto composed by Francis Poulenc between 1934 and 1938. It has become one of the most frequently performed pieces of the genre not written in the Baroque period. History of composition The organ concerto was commissioned by Princess Edmond de Polignac in 1934, as a piece with a chamber orchestra accompaniment and an easy organ part that the princess could probably play herself. The commission was originally given to Jean Françaix, who declined, but Poulenc accepted. Poulenc quickly abandoned this idea for something much more grandiose and ambitious; his earlier harpsichord concerto and double-piano concerto were simpler, more light-hearted pieces. As he wrote in a letter to Françaix, "The concerto...is not the amusing Poulenc of the Concerto for two pianos, but more like a Poulenc en route for the cloister." The death of a colleague and friend, the young c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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