Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season BSO_Overture_NOV_DEC | Page 15

POULENC CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS
sections with the other instruments
gradually creeping in. Though the key is
D major, the young composer also makes
strong use of the minor mode and other
harmonic shadings.
The third movement is really a
Beethovenian scherzo with a hint of
the demonic inspired by its D minor
key. With its spooky rising motive,
the trio section is even more striking;
Mendelssohn gets so caught up in its
contrapuntal and harmonic possibilities,
he never gets back to the scherzo.
The exuberant display of fugal
counterpoint is the focus of the astonishing
finale. Mendelssohn must have loved
and carefully studied Mozart’s “Jupiter”
Symphony, for he patterns it closely on
that symphony’s brilliant display of fugal
invention. Its dashing, effervescent principal
theme is pure Mendelssohn. But it’s with
the second theme, introduced by the violas,
that the young composer gets to show off
his fugal mastery, which also reappears
in the development section. Mozart
was a mature 32 when he created the
contrapuntal genius of the “Jupiter” finale;
at 13, he would not have been capable
of pulling off what the pre-adolescent
Mendelssohn achieves here.
Instrumentation: String Orchestra
CONCERTO FOR TWO PIANOS
AND ORCHESTRA IN D MINOR
Francis Poulenc
Born in Paris, France, January 7, 1899;
died in Paris, January 30, 1963
Composers are often complex, but few
could match Francis Poulenc in this
respect: part worldly Parisian sophisticate,
part sincere, devout Catholic with, as he
said, “the faith of a country pastor.” Born
into a wealthy French family, Poulenc
seems to have inherited these two sides
of his personality from his parents.
His father was a man of deep faith; his
mother was a cultured leader of Parisian
society, who, like her son, adored music,
art, literature and theater.
In his late teens, Poulenc emerged
as one of Les Six—a trendy group of
young composers who thumbed their
noses at the classical establishment and
happily borrowed from popular styles.
Assimilating musicians as diverse as
Bach, Mozart, Chabrier, Stravinsky and
Maurice Chevalier into a style uniquely
his own, Poulenc rightly described
himself as “wildly eclectic.”
By 1932, when he created his Concerto
for Two Pianos, Poulenc was a pet
composer of the wealthy French nobility
who ran Paris’ most fashionable artistic
salons. Chief among them was the
Princesse Edmond de Polignac, born
Winnaretta Singer, heiress of the American
Singer sewing-machine fortune. Over her
philanthropic career, she championed many
of Europe’s leading composers, including
Ravel and Stravinsky. Commissioned by
her and written very rapidly that summer,
the Double Concerto was designed to be a
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