Francis Poulenc, Profane and Sacred

Abstract

In the Parisian world of musical composition between World War I and World War II, Francis Poulenc was not deemed a first-tier composer. Foremost at that level were Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud. By 1958, however, when Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic wanted to commission a work for the presti- gious 1962 opening of Lincoln Center, they turned to Poulenc, for in the postwar era serious listeners had at last discovered in a signifi - cant number of Poulenc's works the impressive transcendent quali- ties that make him a great composer. To be sure, he is not always that, but even those compositions that do not rise to the level of greatness are still music that profoundly enriches and embellishes civilized life. The American Stravinsky on one occasion wrote to Poulenc: You are truly good, and that is what I find again and again and again in your music. 1 Perhaps no two works illustrate Poulenc's artistic span so well as his operas Les Mamelles de Tiresias and Dialogues des Carmelites. Frequently commentators try to explain the distinctions between these two musico-dramatic expressions by setting up polarities: satire versus romance, comedy versus tragedy, word versus music,