Poulenc, "Melancolie" (1940)

[rachfan]

Poulenc's Melancolie is a neo-romantic pastorale, but contains his surprises, ironies, parodies, and wit as well.  It was composed in 1940, and sounds very improvisatory.  That is the way he composed.  Poulenc would first improvise at the piano.  Once he had some interesting material, he would add structure to his improvisations.  Then he'd invite a group of musician friends to his home, and during the evening informally play his new improvisations for them.  If the group was enthusiastic about an improvisation, he would later formalize the work, commit it to score, and submit it to his publisher.

Although Poulenc pieces are generally reputed to lie easily under the hand, I found that there is some Brahmsian writing at times that presented a few challenges.  Incidentally, "Melancolie" is Poulenc's longest piano solo piece.

If you've not heard this piece before, I hope you'll like it.  The publisher is Max Eschig, and the American distributor is Hal Leonard Publishing Corp.

The piano is my Baldwin Model L Artist Grand (6'3")

Comments welcome.
    

[viking]

If this is the piece I'm thinking about, I can't wait to hear it as it is EXTREMELY beautiful.  The fact that it's Poulenc really does help because it's not one of those pieces that are so overplayed.  Anyway, I'll give it a listen when I get home and try to give you some feedback.  I hope to learn this when I get some free time...

[indutrial]

This is indeed a very beautiful piece from a solid composer. Lots of parts from this remind me strongly of Poulenc's countryman Debussy, but that's certainly not a bad thing. Poulenc and his friends Darius Milhaud and Georges Auric have tons of fabulous piano music, if people bother to look for it. You should check out a great piece by Milhaud called Hymne de Glorification, op. 331, another largely-ignored piano work that combines great elements of the past with developments from Milhaud's own time (especially his splashy polychords, which bridge the gap between Debussy and jazz piano playing).

[rachfan]

Hi indutrial,

Yeah, it's hard to listen to "Melancolie" and not like it immediately.  I particularly like Poulenc's compositions that fall more toward the lyrical side.  This one has to be one of his best. 

I'll check out that Milhaud piece you mention.  Thanks for the suggestion!  In just terms of productivity of composing, I think that Milhaud was the modern Mozart of France.  But like Liszt, he wrote some pieces that are masterworks, while others that are... well, not so good.  There's quite a bit of variation.  In the orchestral realm, I always loved his "Creation of the World" with its jazz elements.  Superb!

Thanks a lot for listening.  If I can do some more work on the Poulenc, I might record it again and re-post it.   

[indutrial]

I'll check out that Milhaud piece you mention.  Thanks for the suggestion!  In just terms of productivity of composing, I think that Milhaud was the modern Mozart of France.  But like Liszt, he wrote some pieces that are masterworks, while others that are... well, not so good.  There's quite a bit of variation.  In the orchestral realm, I always loved his "Creation of the World" with its jazz elements.  Superb!

Well, you have to take into consideration that a large portion of Milhaud's 400+ opus numbers are pieces of incidental music and drama/film scores, so he sort of combines the classical industriousness of Mozart with the modern working-musician style of someone like Ennio Morricone. I would say that the majority of classical-setting pieces I've heard by Milhaud are good, solid works, especially his 18 (!!!) string quartets and his chamber sonatas (the sonata for violin/harpsichord is a recent favorite of mine). He also has a lot of unusual things that are worth looking into. If you like Creation du Monde, you might want to check out L'Homme et Son Desir, a strange piece of dance music written for orchestra, wordless voices, and a ton of percussion instruments. Very unusual piece, but very good. He's an easily-ignored composer, since his works really don't stand out next to the innovations of someone like Bartok or Stravinsky, but he's still an important composer to consider.

If you like Poulenc, Milhaud, and the other 'Les Six' composers, check out the composers who formed L'Ecole de Paris (Martinu, Tansman, Harsanyi, Mihalovici) or others from Europe who followed their example in different ways (Badings, Absil). There's a lot of good music to be uncovered.

[rachfan]

Hi indutrial,

Thanks for adding all that information on Milhaud and additional suggestions as well.  Great stuff!  There are many on this forum who really enjoy reading posts like yours.  Quite often I've included interesting background or analytical information about the pieces I've posted, and members have often expressed appreciation.

When it comes to repertoire I do often go to lessor known works.  They require more interpretation which is a more interesting challenge for the pianist than playing an old war horse.  Before the Poulenc piece, my prior posting was Sergei Bortkiewicz's Impromptu Op. 24, No. 3, "Eros" which is now on page 3 of Audition Room.  If you didn't catch it earlier, I think you'd enjoy hearing it.  He is another composer who has been in near total obscurity for the past 60 years, but who wrote extraordinary music, just being re-introduced to the public now.  My next project will be his Prelude Op. 33, No. 7, an incredible piece from a set of 10 preludes.

[viking]

Hello,
I am now finally listening to your recording, and you have proven yourself a fine artist who shows great attention to fine polished playing.  I'll proceed to give what comments I see fit, and feel free to take then for what they're worth. 

When I read your previous post about this piece having an improvisatory feeling, I wondered if it was the same piece.  Now that I am listening to your recording I see exactly how you have decided to make it sound almost like an improvisation.  What I mostly see is you have structured the opening melody into 2 bar phrases.  If I were playing the piece, I would probably go for 4 bar phrases.  It helps with the flow of the piece, and maybe with structure.  I think overall the piece could be played slightly quicker too.  Anyway, take it for what it's worth, but this is mostly what I have taken from my recording (Pascal Roge I think).  Very nice ending and quite convinving playing!
Do you have a recording of the piece?  I could send you one if you're looking for further ideas.
Take care,

Sam

[rachfan]

Hi viking,

Thanks for listening and your compliments.  I appreciate your comments. 

On the phrasing, I'll take a look at the possibility of four-measure phrases, although the two's feel very natural somehow.  Often the last note of measures are 16ths which invite  continuity of phrasing, so I agree with you there.  But other measures end in a quarter note which seem to invite a pause in holding those for full value.  At the least, the pianist has to carefully differentiate the two situations, as Poulenc was obviously deliberate in notating the music that way. 

The tempo is marked tres modere at a quarter = mm 60.  If I didn't come up to that, it's because I'm not fully confident playing the figurations in certain places.  In fact, there are a couple of spots where I further slowed down (no ritardandos indicated there) striving to attain accuracy rather than making a mess of it.  There again, some additional practice would overcome those obstacles.  Yet I think I still put the piece over fairly well, but would really like to polish it more. 

The recording I have is by Andre Previn.  As you know, he's a very modest and a self-effacing person--but a very fine pianist nonetheless.  Nowadays we mostly think of him as a conductor, but as a kid I can remember him as a young man, sometimes playing piano on TV shows where he would mostly do some jazz improvisations.  But in serious piano music, he can play along with the best of them.  I recall his duo-piano album with Ashkenazy doing the Rachmaninoff Suites for instance. 

Thanks again, and I'm glad you enjoyed listening!

[pianistimo]

Dear Rachfan,

In music like this - one can hardly pick out the wrong notes unless one has played the piece.  Thank you for sharing this!  I enjoyed it.  And, considering it's difficulty - I don't think anyone here would complain about much.  I put Poulenc in the same category as Barber (technically quite difficult and hard to pull off musically until you get 'into' the ideas that spur you to make it your own).

I purchased some Leroy Anderson music before Thanksgiving break - and find that some of the unsual harmonies of all these composers (Poulenc, Barber, Anderson) are typically jazzish - but have more classical forms.  Not knowing how a piece will begin and end is so refreshing tonally, melodically, harmonically - so I suppose that all three of those composers are my very very very favorites.  You can't predict what will happen next.

Scriabin is growing on me, too - but only certain pieces.  (Alkan and Sorabji come to mind - as well - with these jazzish ideas).

PS I found it interesting - what you said about Poulenc fitting into your hand in most places - but occasional places that were 'Brahmsish.'  Poulenc was probably the better pianist of the two (according to me) - and I believe had quite long fingers.  This could explain why some of the passages might be harder for shorter fingered people. 

[rachfan]

Hi pianistimo,

Nice to see you back!

I have to say, that when you look at the score of "Melancolie", you'd swear it was medium difficulty--until you try to play it!  It's funny, because I have played in front of some really large audiences in the past without much nervousness.  But put me in front of a microphone (or at my house, three microphones), and I really get uptight.  I did at least three or four takes on "Melancolie" before choosing the once I thought did most justice to the piece.  Today, I practiced it intensely, but as I shifted from practice into performance and recording mode, it just wasn't working right for me (or maybe I wasn't working right for the piece).  So after a few attempts I gave up on it, and will try again later in the week.

I believe that my reference to Brahmsian notation was defendable.  Oftentimes his notation "comes out of the octave" to the point of being awkward writing in my opinion, causing the pianist to scramble to articulate it well.  To make matters even more complicated, Brahms often thought orchestrally rather than pianistically (despite his being a fine pianist in his earlier days), causing the pianist even more technical headaches.  I don't play much Brahms anymore, as his writing and its articulation just don't feel natural to me, and gives me fits!    But I'm in good company.  Even Horowitz used to say that he was not on good terms with Brahms.  Well, Poulenc can have you all over the keyboard too.  His music does present its difficult moments.  And I do have larger hands and longer fingers.

To do justice to Poulenc, I fully intend to submit an improved performance, so it will happen.  But I'm so glad you enjoyed listening to the one that's here for the time being.  And I appreciated your compliments!  

I too love Scriabin.  In the near future I'll tackle his Prelude Op. 33, No. 7--what an extraordinarily gorgeous piece!  Wait till you hear it.  I think the secret to playing his repertoire (but the modernists here will take extreme issue with me) is to stay within Opuses 1 to 60 or so.  Much beyond that, you enter the realm of Scriabin's mysticism, which strikes me as weird, so I don't enjoy that later repertoire nearly as much.  But that's just me.