OTHER ENSEMBLE 360 CDS ALSO AVAILABLE: Quartet for flute and strings in D K.285 Adagio for cor anglais and strings in C K.580a Quintet for piano and wind in E flat K.452 Quintet for clarinet and strings in A K.581 “This is a performance that can stand as a benchmark” BBC Music Magazine (Chamber Music Choice) POULENC GLD 4022 MUSIC FOR PIANO AND WIND Septet in A minor Op.147 Nonet in F Op.31 “…this account by Ensemble 360 catches that cultured, rather gentle classical spirit well…the performance dovetails the piano with the other instruments with perfect elegance and ease.” The Guardian GLD 4026 Septet in E flat Op.20 Serenade in D Op.25 “*****” MusicalCriticism.com NI 6112 © & P 2010 Wyastone Estate Limited ENSEMBLE 360 www.wyastone.co.uk 12 NI 6121 FRANCIS POULENC (1899-1963) About Music in the Round SONATA for flute and piano FP 164 (1956-57) Music in the Round is Britain’s leading chamber music promoter outside London. Based 1. Allegretto malincolico 4.52 in Sheffield, it began in 1984 as a two week long festival in its ‘in the round’ home of the 2. Cantilena. Assez lent 3.58 Sheffield Theatres Studio. The Festival is still running along with Autumn and Spring series, a 3. Presto giocoso 3.32 large and expanding education and community programme Music in the Community, a national touring programme, series across South Yorkshire and resident group Ensemble 360. TRIO for oboe, bassoon and piano FP 43 (1926) www.musicintheround.co.uk 4. Lent – Presto 5.29 5. Andante con moto 3.23 “Music in the Round has revolutionised the way people listen to music” 6. Rondo. Très vif 3.10 Sean Rafferty, In Tune, BBC Radio 3 SONATA for clarinet and piano FP 184 (1962) 7. Allegro tristamente – très calme – tempo allegretto 5.24 8. Romanza. Très calme 4.50 9. Allegro con fuoco. Très animé 3.19 SEXTET for wind quintet and piano FP 100 (1931-39) 10. Allegro vivace. Très vite et emporté 7.42 11. Divertissement. Andantino 4.20 12. Finale. Prestissimo – subito très lent 5.26 SONATA for oboe and piano FP 185 (1962) Producer: Jeremy Hayes 13. Élégie. Paisiblement sans presser 5.02 Engineer and Editor: Tony Faulkner 14. Scherzo. Très animé 4.07 Recorded at Potton Hall, Suffolk on May 28-31, 2008 15. Déploration. Très calme 4.45 With huge thanks to The University of Sheffield Music Total Time: 70.19 Department who supported the production of this disc. Cover Image: © www.istockphoto.com ENSEMBLE 360 Photography by MC Photography Naomi Atherton – horn (10-12) • Guy Eshed – flute (1-3, 10-12) Design by Doubletake Design Ltd Tim Horton – piano (1-15) • Matthew Hunt – clarinet (7-12) Peter Whelan – bassoon (4-6, 10-12) • Adrian Wilson – oboe (4-6, 10-15) www.wyastone.co.uk 2 11 Why Poulenc? Since Ensemble 360 formed in 2005 we have My main impression of Poulenc’s music been exploring Poulenc’s piano and wind is that it is emotionally honest, something music. In fact his Sextet was one of the first that should be the hallmark of all great art. pieces we decided to programme for our Witness for example the final movement inaugural season and it has been a mainstay of of the Oboe Sonata with its premonition our repertoire ever since. of the deathly void; I have rarely come across a more devastating piece. There is also With some embarrassment I have to confess the unmistakeably “French” lusciousness that I used to share the commonly held view of harmony to which Poulenc adds his of Poulenc, a composer who has occupied unique mark; the middle section of the first an unenviable position in the history of 20th movement of the Sextet is a prime example. century music. Vilified by the post-Second And there is wit in abundance. World War avant-garde as retrogressive and ignored by the majority of great performers, Poulenc’s music is also incredibly it has become fashionable to see him as accomplished music. The writing is a minor figure who wrote diverting but completely idiomatic for each instrument, insubstantial music. However, as is so often something that is always welcome given the case, immersion in a composer’s output the extra-musical rigours of performance! reveals depths and beauties that one could This doesn’t mean that it is easy music to not have previously imagined. play but it is always a total pleasure. We’ll be programming it for many years to come. Tim Horton, Ensemble 360 10 3 FRANCIS POULENC (1899–1963) Ensemble 360 appears regularly on BBC participation and narration. Members of the Radio 3 and at some of the largest festivals ensemble regularly run schools’ workshops, Music for piano and wind trombone. In 1926, Poulenc wrote his Trio and venues in England including the performance and composition classes with for oboe, bassoon and piano, written with Sombreness and good humour are not mutually Wigmore Hall, the National Centre for a variety of ages and are resident at The advice from one friend, Igor Stravinsky, exclusive. [French] composers, too, write profound Early Music, Bath International Festival, University of Sheffield. and dedicated to another, Manuel de Falla. Buxton Festival, Leamington Music Festival music, but when they do, it is leavened with the Outside Ensemble 360 the musicians all While it is not the most experimental of and Manchester Chamber Concert Series. It lightness of spirit without which life would be have highly successful individual careers his works from the 1920s, it is the ensemble tours every year with Music in the Round’s unendurable. working with such renowned musicians and piece that most completely demonstrates the national touring programme, and has ensembles as Adrian Brendel, Trevor Pinnock, Though Poulenc was commenting on French range of Poulenc’s musical language – from established its own concert series in Barnsley, Manchester Camerata, Nash Ensemble, RTÉ music in general, this 1950 description from the astringent harmonies of the opening Doncaster and Telford. The group also brings National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, an article for the Saturday Review could bars (a deliberate recollection of the French other international artists to Sheffield to Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse easily be taken as autobiographical: perhaps Overture style, lightly spiced à la Stravinsky), perform in the ten-day May Festival and and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie. They no other twentieth century composer so to the song-like elegance and lyrical restraint Autumn and Spring series. effortlessly blended ‘lightness of spirit’ with of the slow movement, and the high spirits have performed across the UK at festivals a deeper, more melancholy expressiveness, of the finale. Poulenc spent several years Ensemble 360 has established its own brand including the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, and this is particularly apparent in his worrying over the Trio (his earliest plans go of children’s concerts which tour to sell-out Edinburgh, Plush, Wye Valley Festivals and most important chamber music for wind back to 1921), and in November 1924 he audiences. Commissioning two scores from across Europe, America and Japan in venues instruments: the Trio, Sextet and three gave a description of it to his friend Paul composer Paul Rissmann in the last two including the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Sonatas on the present disc. Collaer: ‘I’ve worked on it a lot. It’s in a style years, these unique musical stories combine Hall and Tokyo Suntory Hall. new to me yet at the same time it’s very Poulenc was always drawn to wind Poulenc.’ This neatly summarizes the work’s www.musicintheround.co.uk/ensemble360 instruments: apart from single sonatas for significance in Poulenc’s output, as one of violin and cello, the bulk of his chamber the first pieces to reveal the stylistic diversity works are for wind. One of his earliest that later earned him the description of published pieces was a Sonata for Two being both ‘monk and vagabond’: seriousness, Clarinets (1918), written when Poulenc tenderness and raw good humour are to was still in his teens, and this was followed be found side by side here. Poulenc gave four years later by sonatas for clarinet the premiere of the Trio at the Salle des and bassoon, and for horn, trumpet and Agriculteurs in Paris on 2 May 1926, with 4 9 Ensemble 360 has gained an enviable and this radiates through each performance. Roger Lamorlette (oboe) and Gustave of the Sextet in its finished form took place reputation across the UK not only for the Their enthusiasm, drive and musicality draw Dhérin (bassoon). In 1928 the same artists during the early months of the German quality and integrity of their playing, but also audiences into their performances both made the work’s first recording for French Occupation of Paris, on 9 December 1940, for their ability to communicate the music through the quality of their playing and their Columbia – one of Poulenc’s earliest records. at a concert given by the Association de to a range of different audiences. Formed in engaging trademark spoken introductions. Musique Contemporaine, with Poulenc at The Sextet for piano, flute, oboe, clarinet, 2005, as eleven musicians of international the piano and the Quintette à vent de Paris. Critical acclaim has greeted all three of the bassoon and horn is another work which standing came together to take up residency Poulenc kept the manuscript to himself ensembles CDs to date; Mozart, Spohr and demonstrates that composing was sometimes in Sheffield with Music in the Round during the years of the war and eventually Beethoven (Sanctuary Classics, now Universal).