Francis Poulenc

Poulenc was born and died in Paris. He belonged to Les Six, the group of young French composers named by the critic Henri Collet. His music is essentially diatonic, built on clear tunes, and Lennox Berkeley observed that he used conventional harmony in a highly individual way. The mood runs from light-hearted to serious, and he also wrote religious works such as the Stabat Mater (1950) and the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957).

Wind instruments run through his chamber music. The Sextet for piano and wind quintet (1931 to 1932, revised 1939) is playful and satirical. Its central Divertissement parodies Mozart, the finale opens with what one account calls an Offenbachian gallop, and the work ends with a solemn coda influenced by Ravel. The Concerto for Two Pianos (summer 1932, premiered in Venice on 5 September 1932 by Poulenc and Jacques Février) draws on a Balinese gamelan he had heard in Paris in 1931, on Mozart in its Larghetto, and on music-hall energy in its finale. The pianists play almost continuously, with no conventional cadenzas.

The Flute Sonata (1956 to 1957, first played by Jean-Pierre Rampal and Poulenc) and the Clarinet Sonata (1962, in memory of Arthur Honegger, premiered after Poulenc's death by Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein) are late works. Both open in a melancholy mood, Allegro malinconico and Allegro tristamente, and both end with lively finales.