Already in an early work,
Chaconne, Op 8, charm vies with an absolutely assured technique. Not that this is any real sense a strict invention on a ground bass, but rather an elegantly generalized evocation of Baroque – the first of several essays in playful archaism, with a few unexpected modulations that anticipate the witty incongruities of Prokofiev’s ‘Classical’ symphony. Or, rather, the cheerful stylistic promiscuity of Poulenc – as becomes clear in
Autrefois.
from notes by Calum MacDonald © 1992
