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Track(s) taken from SIGCD272

Main dominée par le cœur, FP135

composer
August 1946
author of text
Le main le cœur le lion le oiseau, from Poésie et vérité 1942

Thomas Oliemans (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
CD-Quality:
Studio Master:
Recording details: September 2010
St Michael's Church, Summertown, Oxford, United Kingdom
Produced by John H West
Engineered by Andrew Mellor
Release date: November 2011
Total duration: 1 minutes 12 seconds
 

Other recordings available for download

Geraldine McGreevy (soprano), Graham Johnson (piano)

Reviews

'This is very much the mixture as before in the first of Signum's projected cycle of the complete Poulenc songs. The team of British singers accompanied by Malcolm Martineau is the same as before, the sopranos tending to outshine the male singers, though Felicity Lott in one or two of her contributions—as for example the Lafanne poems—is not in quite such fresh voice as before, even if the difference is marginal and her artistry and feeling for the French language remain as impressive as ever' (Gramophone)

'This is the third volume in the impressive coverage of all Poulenc's songs masterminded by the superb pianist Malcolm Martineau … the present set any slight piano dominance comes from the sheer character of Martineau's playing. This is immediately effective in the opening group of four Airs chantes, sung with engaging character and immediacy by Sarah Fox. In 'Colloque', which follows, Loma Anderson is joined by Thomas Oliemans, which brings most beautiful singing in a nostalgic love duet' (Gramophone)
Éluard's own heading for this closing poem of Poésie et vérité 1942 was La main le cœur le lion l’oiseau. The marking is Très allant and the accompaniment is in non-stop semiquavers, hectic on paper perhaps, but sharing with a number of the other masterpieces inspired by the same poet a kind of genial calm, an unfolding of music that is ardent at the same time as being above the fray—a gnomic pronouncement. Poulenc, in a letter to Bernac, admitted that the tempo was modelled on Fauré’s Le don silencieux, one of that composer’s most inscrutably beautiful songs. Poulenc has carefully worked out a chain of harmonic progressions that mirrors the word-journey (‘main’ back to ‘main’) traced in the poem’s first seven lines. This is one of the most graceful and sinuous of the Éluard songs, nine bars in three flats, in the minor key, the remainder basking in the sunlight of naturals. The closing section (to the words ‘Les yeux purs la tête inerte’) is swathed in graceful arpeggio arabesques, the piano imitating the melody of the vocal line after a gap of two bars; this leads to one of the most satisfying codas of any of the Poulenc songs where gentle cascades of pianism lead to an immensely satisfying, and sumptuously extended, C major cadence.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2013

Other albums featuring this work

Poulenc: The Complete Songs
CDA68021/44CDs Boxed set (at a special price)
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