Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) is one of the most distinctive voices of the 20th century. A member of Les Six alongside Milhaud and Honegger, he established a lively, sometimes insolent Parisian spirit as early as the 1920s with Les Biches, created for the Ballets Russes. Behind the lightness of the Roaring Twenties, a more serious vein gradually emerged: the loss of close friends, a return to the Catholic faith, and works marked by spiritual fervor, such as Stabat Mater (1950) and Gloria (1961). A composer of finely crafted songs, he was a close friend of Pierre Bernac. Poulenc also made his mark on the operatic stage with works that have become essential, including Dialogues of the Carmelites and The Human Voice.
In 1938, he composed one of his instrumental masterpieces, the Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani, a union of solemnity and light. In 1973, choreographer Glen Tetley drew inspiration from it for Voluntaries, a tribute to John Cranko. In this dialogue across time, Poulenc’s music, at once limpid and contrasting, breathes dramatic momentum into dance, balancing inner fervor with rhythmic vitality.
