It Would Have To Be…The Complete Songs (5 CDs) ATMA Classique
Because Poulenc’s feeling for matching words to music was second to none, and the songs express the very essence of his art.
The List So Far:
1. Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Ballet)
2. Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
3. Schubert: String Quintet in C major
4. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
5. Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
6. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
7. Debussy: Preludes for Piano (Books 1 & 2)
8: Handel: Saul
9. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
10. Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major
11. Vaughan Williams: Job
12. Bach: Goldberg Variations
13. R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
14. Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
15. Haydn: “Paris” Symphonies (Nos. 82-87)
16. Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen
17. Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor
18. Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor
19. Chopin: Preludes
20. Verdi: Rigoletto
21. Roussel: Symphony No. 2
22. Copland: Appalachian Spring (complete original ballet)
23. Grieg: Peer Gynt Suites Nos. 1 and 2
24. Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion
25. Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2
26. Rimsky-Korsakov: Opera Suites (Scottish National Orchestra/Järvi) Chandos
27. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire
28. Smetana: Ma Vlást
29. Falla: Nights in the Gardens of Spain
30. Bizet: Carmen
31. Elgar: In the South
32. Sullivan: The Mikado
33. Dvořák: Symphony No. 8; Cello Concerto (Piatigorsky/Munch/Boston Symphony) RCA
34. Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsodies
35. Monteverdi: Orfeo
36. Scarlatti: Sonatas
37. Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17
38. Berg: Wozzeck
39. Hermann: Psycho (film score)
40. Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini
41. Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
42. Holst: Suites for Military Band
43. Stravinsky: Oedipus Rex
44. Respighi: Three Botticelli Pictures
45. Sibelius: Symphony No. 5; Pohjola’s Daughter (Bernstein, New York Philharmonic) Sony
46. Britten: The Turn of the Screw
47. Borodin: String Quartet No. 2
48. Janácek: The Cunning Little Vixen
49. Korngold: Violin Concerto
50. Tallis: Spem in Alium
51. Nielsen: Symphony No. 5
52. Barber: Knoxville: Summer of 1915
53. Hindemith: Symphony in E-flat
54. Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov
55. Franck: Violin Sonata
56. Rossini: La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie)
57. Saint-Saëns: Piano Concerto No. 5 “Egyptian”
58. Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins
59. Pergolesi: Stabat Mater
60. Albeniz: Iberia
61. Bernstein: Mass
62. Schreker: Chamber Symphony
63. Walton: Variations on a Theme by Hindemith
64. Dukas: Piano Sonata
65. Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
66. Tippett: Piano Concerto
source
for me, the three perpetual movements, for piano, since I heard (I think it is the first) that in the film the rope of alfred hitchcock, this air remained in my head…. ..of course there are other works by Poulen that I like….to list them all would be too long……
A world without things like Banalites or Chansons Gaillardes is a world I want no part of, so I'm fully behind this choice.
Dave, there is a BIG problem with this Atma Classique album. The French texts of these songs are contained in the booklet, but no English translations. If you are not fluent in French, you are out of luck. Stick with Graham Johnson's Poulenc album, which includes texts AND English translations.
If we’re up to Poulenc, Messiaen must not be far behind. I’d go with Quartet for the end of time or the meditations on the mystery of the trinity. Unless you want to mix the religion and the bird obsession and then the choice has to be Saint Francis, but then it’s a question of whether someone’s only opera/stage work can be most representative of them…I think in this case the argument could be made.
Waiting with anticipation for Messiaen!!!!!
I certainly couldn't miss Dialogues des Carmélites, if only for the last scene…
There is so much great Poulenc! It's an easy one for me. The Concerto for Organ and Strings. It runs through the whole gamut of emotions and keeps you on your toes (or ears). The recording I prefer is with Durufle and Pretre from 1961.
Great choice! That's a gorgeous set.
Couldn’t agree more with you Dave, although I don’t have this particular set (can one have too many?)
“Je ne veux pas travailler
Je veux fumer”
Or the eyes as two big balloons at the end of “Montparnasse”
Just priceless… 🙂
An unexpected choice. I nominated "Dialogues of the Carmelites" because of its status as one of the great operatic masterpieces or the Twentieth Century, and an epitome of Poulenc's epigrammatic style at its best–in the service of a riveting drama. I never thought of the songs, in large part because I hardly know them. Your evident enthusiasm for them, Dave, has piqued my interest. Another suggestion for the series: What to do about Stenhammar? His catalog of works is very small and, arguably, he wrote two undisputed orchestral masterpieces: The Serenade and the Second Symphony. I would be hard presed to choose between them. Both are representative of Stenhammar's genius at fullest stretch. I would lean, only slightly, toward the Second Symphony, given its almost Brucknerian scope, and that amazing contrapuntal finale (modeled after the finale of Bruckner 5 one wonders?). But if I were a betting man–which I am not–the odds are that you will probably choose the Serenade, given remarks you have made on previous occasions in your reviews. We will see, won't we?
Thanks Dave for this series, it has opened my eyes and ears to so much music that I was not familiar with before. I'll check out the songs in a few minutes… I have an old recording of the Gloria which I have listened to dozens of times and am fascinated with how the accents on much of the text seem to be in the wrong places, but it's wonderful. Do I have that right?
David please, please my high fellow, O’ brilliant wit of gods creation, I beg you with all my being and soul: please do SCRIABIN
My frail heart cannot take this any longer…
I immediately thought "Dialogues" but the "Gloria" also entered my mind.
wish i could afford buying all these discs XD
Julie Boulianne one of my favourite singer.
Split decision.
(1) Les biches. The complete ballet.
(2) Concerto in G minor for organ, strings, and timpani.
Not a choice that shows all he could achieve. For me, I'll pick The Breasts of Tiresias, an absolute masterpiece of song, orchestration, comedy, absurdity, and variations of style. I think it's his best opera and though the songs are glorious, I think the world without this work would be an infinitely sadder place.
I also love the violin sonata, especially the old Suk Panenka Supraphon recording (even if the balance, on the original LP at least, overly favours the violin)
I almost got this right, having nominated the mini-cantata Le Bal Masqué for voice and 8 players. I thought of Les Mamelles, but in an odd way, giving it pride of place would be to honor his "prettiest" but not most sophisticated work. So I'm a happy man, big time.
Couldn’t agree more!…his songs are just phenomenal. He really is unmatched in setting text to music…L’Hotel is a personal favorite…the laziest song ever written?!
I'll go with the brief two-act opera (plus a Prologue), "Les Mamelles de Tiresias". It's so utterly delightful. It's like the real opera version of "The Young Girls of Rochefurt".
As long as albums are permitted, why not the Integrale Edition on Warner Classics?