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Concerto in G minor for Organ, String and Timpani |
Composed: 1934-38 Estimated length: |
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Born on January 7, 1899, in Paris, France; Died on January 30, 1963, in Paris, France. |
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First performance: Private premiere on December 16, 1938, at the salon of the Princess de Polignac, with Nadia Boulanger conducting; public premiere on June 1939 in Paris, with Roger Désormière conducting the Paris Symphony; Maurice Duruflé was the soloist on both occasions. |
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First Nashville Symphony performance: October 13, 1989, with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting at War Memorial Auditorium. |
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"Its profound beauty haunts me,” wrote the Princess Edmonde de Polignac, whose patronage was responsible for this concerto. Born in the United States as Winnaretta Singer and an heiress to her father’s fortune (he invented the Singer sewing machine), the Princess belonged to a circle of fashionable, art-loving aristocrats in Paris with whom Francis Poulenc blended quite comfortably. The Princess, like Poulenc himself, was primarily attracted to her own sex, her marriage to the Prince having been arranged by the man who served as the actual model for Marcel Proust’s fictive Baron de Charlus. But the de Polignac couple shared a passion for music, and their legendary salon in Paris—another source for Proust’s vast novel—became a crucible for new music by the likes of Debussy and Ravel. After her husband’s death, the Princess “Winnie” continued to commission leading composers, including Igor Stravinsky, Erik Satie, and her friend Poulenc.
Himself born into a wealthy family involved in the budding pharmaceutical industry, Poulenc had risen to fame as a sparkling, saucy bon vivant amid the free-wheeling spirit of 1920s Paris. The stylish and fun-loving composer had a taste for luxury and the material comforts of life but went through a powerful conversion experience that reawakened his spiritual awareness while still at work on the Organ Concerto. In 1936, he was shaken to his core by the sudden death of a friend in a violent car accident. Poulenc experienced an epiphany that led him to embrace again the Catholic faith of his childhood.
The Organ Concerto encompasses the extreme facets of Poulenc’s musical personality: the fan of gorgeous tunes who also loves to shock and the pious composer seeking to induce a spirit of intimate contemplation. After another candidate turned down the commission, Princess de Polignac asked Poulenc to write something for small orchestra with a relatively easy solo organ part she could play herself. The Organ Concerto became more ambitious and time-consuming than his other works up to that point.
WHAT TO LISTEN FOR
Seven mostly brief sections linked together comprise this single-movement concerto, beginning with a slow introduction that pays homage to J.S. Bach. The first of three fast sections follows and introduces several ideas that give unity to the piece, which is marked by dramatic contrasts in tempo, volume, and even style. The ensuing slower music is the longest section—not far distant in mood to the kind of Romanticism Poulenc had once parodied. Serene passages alternate with more agitated music until Poulenc reprises the arresting gesture of the opening. But the final section transcends references to music of the past with some of Poulenc’s most affecting and original personal touches, coming to an end on an ecstatic chord, at full blast, that is neither major nor minor—but as paradoxical as Poulenc himself.
Scored for solo organ, timpani, and strings.
− Thomas May is the Nashville Symphony's program annotator.
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