Francis Poulenc - Aubade; Le Bal masqué; Flute Sonata; Sextet (Mark Bebbington; etc.)

Information

Composer: Francis Poulenc

• Aubade, FP51a
• Le Bal masqué, FP60
• Flute Sonata, FP164
• Sextet, FP100

Mark Bebbington, piano

Roderick Williams, baritone

Emer McDonough, flute

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Jan Latham-Koenig, conductor

Date: 2021

Label: Resonus

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Review

This is Mark Bebbington’s second Poulenc disc for Resonus and a more than worthy companion to its predecessor, much admired by Patrick Rucker in these pages on its release last year (6/20). The programme, as before, juxtaposes chamber music with larger-scale works, and Bebbington’s collaborators for the latter are again the Royal Philharmonic under Jan Latham-Koenig. Bebbington also partners the orchestra’s principal flautist, Emer McDonough, in the Flute Sonata: the players who join him for the Sextet are regrettably not credited individually.

Aubade (1929) and Le bal masqué (1932) are genre-bending works that resist classification, though both were commissioned, originally for private performance, by Charles Vicomte de Noailles and his wife Marie-Laure. Ostensibly a ballet about the complex emotional life of the supposedly chaste goddess Diana, Aubade is described as a concerto choréographique thanks to the piano’s difficult concertante role, though there are times, notably in the Andante – at once the slow movement and the principal pas de deux – where the soloist cedes prominence to the woodwind. Setting surreal texts by Max Jacob about aristocratic decline and decrepitude, Le bal masqué for baritone (or mezzo) and ensemble has often been dubbed a ‘secular cantata’, which gives little indication as to its bitter, morbid humour or the demotic urbanity of its score.

Both are given performances of considerable brilliance. Bebbington is terrific in the exacting toccata that opens Aubade, imperious in the sequence of récitatifs that separate the dances that follow and powerfully assertive in the Allegro feroce that suddenly collapses into the sorrowing finale when Diana finally abandons her companions. The ambiguous mood, hovering between austerity and sensuousness, is perfectly judged, and there are some beautifully shaped orchestral solos, in particular the wistful woodwind melodies that dominate the Andante. Le bal masqué, in contrast, is all brittle elegance and acidic wit, its fleeting moments of lyricism thrown into sharp relief by the hectic momentum of the rest of it. Latham-Koenig drives it forwards with nervous urgency, Bebbington dominates an ensemble that is crisp and thrillingly precise, and Roderick Williams, delivering the songs with sardonic glee, sounds as if he’s really enjoying himself. Neither texts nor translations are provided, though; we really could do with them here.

The same qualities of crispness and precision characterise the performance of the Sextet. Ensemble is again taut and wonderfully even-handed. As with Aubade, the bittersweet mood is immaculately sustained and the woodwind solos beautifully done, above all in the central Divertissement, where sadness rubs shoulders with grace and Poulenc is at his most beguiling. The Flute Sonata, meanwhile, is really lovely. McDonough plays with exquisite poise and understated dexterity, while Bebbington is marvellously alert to the work’s every emotional shift. It’s a very fine disc, though the absence of texts for Le bal masqué is a major drawback.

-- Tim Ashley

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Francis Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. He was one of a group of young composers known collectively as Les Six. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. Among the best-known are the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928), and the Organ Concerto (1938). In addition to his work as a composer, Poulenc was an accomplished pianist. He toured in Europe and America with the baritone Pierre Bernac and the soprano Denise Duval, and made a number of recordings.

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Mark Bebbington (born 17 January 1972) is a British concert pianist. He studied at the Royal College of Music with Kendall Taylor and Phyllis Sellick and later in Italy with Aldo Ciccolini. As an advocate of British music, he has given premieres in concert and on CD of major works by Vaughan-Williams, Arthur Bliss, William Mathias, Ivor Gurney and John Ireland. Bebbington has recorded widely for SOMM and Resonus labels. Over recent seasons, he has toured extensively throughout Central and Northern Europe, the Far East and North America. As a recitalist, he makes regular appearances at major UK and international festivals.

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