''Élégie pour cor et piano'' – Elegy for horn and piano – FP 168 is a short, one-movement work by the French composer

Francis Poulenc Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (; 7 January 189930 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include mélodie, songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among th ...

, written in memory of the

horn Horn may refer to: Common uses * Horn (acoustic), a tapered sound guide ** Horn antenna ** Horn loudspeaker ** Vehicle horn ** Train horn *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various animals * Horn (instrument), a family ...

player

Dennis Brain Dennis Brain (17 May 19211 September 1957) was a British French horn, horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served ...

, who died in 1957. It was first performed in January 1958.

Background and premiere

Poulenc had a profound admiration for the British horn player

. When the latter died in a car crash in 1957, aged 36, Poulenc composed the Élégie as a tribute. Unsure of the capabilities of the solo instrument, he sought the advice of the horn player Georges Barboteu before completing the piece. The Élégie was premiered by the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

in a broadcast on 17 February 1958, played by Brain's former

Philharmonia The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Richard Strauss, ...

colleague

Neill Sanders Neill Joseph Sanders (24 November 1923 – 19 April 1992) was a British horn player, principal horn of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and for 29 years a member of the Melos Ensemble. He was a professor at West ...

, with the composer at the piano."Poulenc's Elegy for Dennis Brain", ''The Times'', 8 February 1958, p. 3

Structure

The work typically takes between nine and ten minutes in performance. It is unique in Poulenc's oeuvre in opening with a 12-note

tone row In music, a tone row or note row ( or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometime ...

. Although Poulenc had met the leading proponent of 12-tone music,

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

, and admired his music, in his own compositions he remained a tonal composer throughout his career, and this use of a serial theme is entirely untypical. The tone row is followed by a short and strongly accented molto agitato passage in which both horn and piano play triads of C major and C minor. The tone row returns and is again displaced by the molto agitato. After a bridge passage marked "tres calme", the main theme of the Élégie, in a basic G minor, is a slow melody for horn accompanied by

quavers Quavers are a deep-fried potato-based British snack food. Launched in the UK in 1968, they were originally made by Smith's in their factory on Newark Road in the Bracebridge area of Lincoln. Since 1997 they have been produced by Walkers. The ...

in the piano's middle register and a

cantabile Cantabile is a term in music meaning to perform in a singing style. The word is taken from the Italian language and literally means "singable" or "songlike". In instrumental music, it is a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human ...

line in the bass. The musicologist

Wilfrid Mellers Wilfrid Howard Mellers (26 April 1914 – 17 May 2008) was an English music critic, musicologist and composer. Early life Born in Leamington, Warwickshire, Mellers was educated at the local Leamington College and later won a scholarship to Dow ...

finds both the horn melody and the piano accompaniment related to passages from Poulenc's

Stabat Mater The Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Christian hymn to the Virgin Mary that portrays her suffering as mother during the crucifixion of her son Jesus Christ. Its author may be either the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi or Pope Innocent III.Saba ...

(1950) and his opera ''

Dialogues des 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. Poulenc wrote the libretto for his second o ...

'' (1956). After a climax in fortissimo triads of E flat and C, both with flat sevenths, the Élégie moves gently towards its conclusion, ending pianissimo.Mellers, pp. 161–162 The horn's final theme is a new 12-tone sequence ending on the leading-note of the C major harmony on which it is supported.Aprahamian, p. 7 Towards the end of the piece the piano has cadences reminiscent of the chimes of

Big Ben Big Ben is the nickname for the Great Bell of the Great Clock of Westminster, and, by extension, for the clock tower itself, which stands at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Originally named the Clock Tower, it ...

, a reference to Brain's nationality.

Recordings

Recordings listed by

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

in August 2021 include one by the composer, with the horn player

Lucien Thévet Lucien Thévet (June 3, 1914 June 30, 2007) was a twentieth-century French horn player and teacher in France. Early life and education Lucien Thévet's father, Eugène Thévet, an amateur musician who played the cornet, introduced his son starti ...

and by these horn and piano partnerships: *

Hervé Joulain Hervé Joulain (born 1966) is a French horn player. Biography Born in Saint-Romans-lès-Melle (Deux-Sèvres), Joulain was Premier French horn super-soloist of the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France under the direction of Marek Janowski. ...

;

Alexandre Tharaud Alexandre Tharaud (born 9 December 1968) is a French pianist. He is active on the concert stage and has released a large and diverse discography. Life and career Born in Paris, Tharaud discovered the music scene through his mother who was a danc ...

*Nicholas Korth and Julian Mitchell *Ab Koster;

Éric Le Sage Éric Le Sage (born 15 June 1964 in Aix-en-Provence) is a contemporary French classical pianist. Biography After he finished his studies at the Conservatoire de Paris, Le Sage went to London to improve by Maria Curcio. Éric Le Sage is best ...

*Neil Page; Martin Qvist Hansen *

Richard Watkins Richard Watkins (born 1962) is a horn player. He performs as a concerto soloist and chamber music player. He was Principal Horn of the Philharmonia Orchestra from 1985 to 1996, a position he relinquished to devote more time to his solo career. ...

; Ian Brown *Richard Watkins;

Julius Drake Julius Drake (born 5 April 1959) is an English pianist who works as a song recital accompanist and chamber musician. Biography Drake was educated at the Purcell School and the Royal College of Music; he made his professional debut at the Purcell ...

References and sources

References

Sources

* * * * {{Francis Poulenc Chamber music by Francis Poulenc 1957 compositions Funerary and memorial compositions Compositions for horn and piano