Poetic Poulenc

 

Classic composers can also be poetic. One of Tomoko’s favorites is Frenchmen Francis Poulenc, who was also a celebrated pianist.

 Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was born in Paris on the cusp of the 20^th century: January 7, 1899. Poulenc’s mother played the piano competently, and Poulenc developed broad musical taste. However, his father would not allow Poulenc to study at a music conservatory. Fortunately, early 20^th century Paris was a cultural hot bed and Poulenc was able to befriend piano and composition mentors Ricardo Viñes, George Auric and Erik Satie. The young composers admitted him to “Les Nouveaux Jeunes,” a circle of protégé musicians. In the 1920s, Poulenc was known as one member of “Les Six”: up and coming composers. Poet Cocteau served as the group’s father figure.

Indeed, Poulenc met several avant-garde poets and set their poems to music. In fact, his first public composition, Rapsodie nègre, featured African-style poetry. Only 18 at the time, his five-movement piece was impressive enough that Stravinsky helped Poulenc to get a contract with a music publisher. Even while serving in the French army, Poulenc set poems (in this case, Apollinaire) to music; the resultant song cycle was an international success. His incorporation of poetry continued in the 1930s, at which point his music was one of the first to be broadcast on BBC television. During World War II Poulenc set French Resistance poets’ works to music, which sometimes could not be performed in France when it was under German occupation – so was broadcast in England. Poulenc also performed his songs; Pierre Bernac and he dueted for over twenty years in Paris and internationally.

Poulenc also composed operas, ballet music, liturgical works, and chamber music thoughout his life, which ended in 1963 from a heart attack.

Tomoko’s album Baroque-20^th Century features Poulenc’s break-out piece Movements Perpétuels” and his mid-career “Villageoises,” which was inspired by the French countryside. Like Poulenc, Tomoko appreciates the natural rhythm of poetry, which music can accentuate.

Gabriel Fauré and Tomoko

Tomoko asserts that at each decade in life, certain composers are particularly apt. For instance, Tomoko recommends Fauré for pianists in their thirties; “He is so elegant,” she says. Tomoko also likes to explore composers’ lives because it adds to the richness and context of the music. To that end, then, here are some aspects of Fauré that inform his works.

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in 1845 in southern France. One of six children, he was the only musically sibling. Upon advice and with the help of a scholarship, his father sent Gabriel to a boarding school for nine years to study music, mainly church music. However, when composer Camille Saint-Saëns took over piano studies, he introduced contemporary music and mentored Gabriel. 

Upon graduating, Gabriel served as a church organist and gave piano lessons. Soon the Franco-Prussian War began, and he volunteers to military service. After the war he taught in Switzerland, and then returned to Paris to serve as a choirmaster and later a church organist. Throughout his life he also taught, later in life more composition than performance; he was even appointed health of Paris Conservatoire.

Early on, Fauré promoted new French music as a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique, which included important composers of the day. This networking – along with frequent travels where he connected with still more computers -- stimulated his own compositions, which were mainly for piano and for stringed instruments. He was influenced by Chopin, Mozart and Schumann in his early years. His harmonic and melodic style were innovative, and presaged Impressionist composers as well foreshadowed Schoenberg’s atonal compositions. He was also a master of the French art song. 

For her album Touria, Tomoko performed two of Fauré’s early impromptus and “Siciienne,” which was originally written for a theatrical production.  The three compositions all have a lightness of spirit, which would lighten the day for performers in their thirties.

As Fresh as Fauré

Gabriel Fauré and Tomoko shared several details in life. Both played the organ for Catholic mass. Both taught piano after than graduated from college. Tomoko enjoys both Romanticism and modernism, which Fauré bridged. And Tomoko performs Fauré’s compositions.

Fauré was born in 1845 in southern France, and was trained in religious music. One of his teachers, Camille Saint-Saëns, introduced Fauré to contemporary music; they stayed friends until Saint-Saëns’ death sixty years later. Saint-Saëns also inspired Fauré to travel abroad, during which time he met Liszt and Wagner. In his turn, decades later, Fauré taught future composers Ravel, Roger-Ducasse and Boulanger among others.

 Fauré started composing under Saint-Saëns but was waylaid by the Franco-Prussian War in which he fought. Not surprisingly, his compositions had a dark hue. Nor did he ever compose for the organ. He mainly wrote for piano, although one of his first masterpieces was a violin sonata. He also created art songs, operas, chamber works, and incidental music for plays. Fauré was considered a modernist with his harmonies, and his composition style maintained a freshness throughout his life.

One of Fauré’s pieces that Tomoko enjoys playing is Sicilienne, which was originally a work for cello and piano and eventually was arranged for a full orchestra as a four-movement suite. This piece, one of his most famous, reflects several of Fauré’s signature stylistic details. He uses modal effects in a mixed major-minor scale, giving rise to medieval-sounding cadences, and his altered chords lead to harmonic ambiguities. The result iss slightly haunting.

Tomoko too maintains a fresh attitude in her teaching and her performance, which keeps her spirit young.

Folk Music That Binds and Frees

Tomoko considers folk music as the soul of a culture, and a musical inspiration for composers.

Music comes form humans, and human emotion – like spirit – is the same over the ages. “The most important thing is the performers’ emotional communication with the audience,” Tomoko asserts. She recalls attending a balalaika concert, where the audience was so swept away, that they called for an encore. Tomoko remarks, “I felt sorry for the performers, forcing them to do more. They had poured out their emotions in their concert.”

“Real music is everywhere,” says Tomoko. In France the churches hold concerts. “These events promote community, and people think about the after life,” says Tomoko. Music brings a community together as a common emotional language. With music and dance a community celebrates traditions that reflect and unify them’ “People experience heightened feelings, and the music follows.” Tomoko adds, “And music can bring all ages together.” She says,“I remember attending a music festival, and a 95-year woman sitting next to me said how much she loved music.”

Much of folk music is carried on from generation to generation vocally and through instrumental performance. Composers draw upon those tunes to capture cultural and values. Both Chopin and Bartok based compositions on homeland dances, and shared their musical heritages with other nations. Tomoko points out, “The folk inspiration fostered music that came from the heart, and yet how the composers built upon that folk music helped them express their own individuality.”

Folk music brings about a feeling of belonging, and helps share our identity.  It both binds people together, and frees them to be themselves.