The Gramophone Choice

‘Half Monk, Half Rascal’ – Sept chansons. Quatre petites prières de Saint François d’Assise. Ave verum corpus. Un soir de neige. Laudes de Saint Antoine de Padoue. Chansons françaises. Chanson à boire

Danish National Vocal Ensemble / Stephen Layton

OUR Recordings 8 226906 (56’ · DDD · T/t). Buy from Amazon 

The Danish National Vocal Ensemble face some pretty stiff competition with this disc of unaccompanied Poulenc but they do not just hold their own; they sweep a lot of it aside. Under Stephen Layton’s perceptive and often inspired direction, they capture the essential dichotomy of Poulenc’s writing as encapsulated in the title of the disc, a translation of the famous quote by Claude Rostand. 

Layton has shown his exceptional affinity with the music of Poulenc before – notably with Polyphony in the Gloria (Hyperion) – and it shines through every nuance here. The lightning changes of mood, the abrupt transformations from the boisterous to the intimate and, of course, the unsettling switching between prayerful and playful are brought across with complete composure, and what might come across as an awkward juxtaposition of unrelated ideas becomes a natural progression of ingenious musical invention never blunting its highly distinctive edge. Poulenc’s music is always fresh and invigorating; Layton merely refreshes it for our ears. 

Exquisitely turned phrases and superbly poised melodic lines, be they the pseudochanting of the lonely tenor and the magically monk-like male chorus in the last of the Prières de Saint François d’Assise or the vertiginous screech of the soprano, more monkey than monk, in ‘Luire’ (from the Sept chansons), bring a sense of coherence to a programme in which the longest of the 29 tracks only slightly overruns the three-and-a-half-minute mark. 

On absolutely top form, the choir fluidly switches between the highly charged energy of the breathlessly galloping ‘Marie’, with its captivatingly subtle harmonic switches, and the ethereally floating quietude of Ave verum corpus with absolute assurance. If a highlight has to be identified, for me it would be the sumptuously voluptuous account of Un soir de neige. Coupled with a beautifully atmospheric recording and interesting notes (disturbingly printed on a pink background), this is a one-disc Poulenc compendium no Poulencophile should be without. 

Additional Recommendation

Figure humaine. Sept Chansons. Un soir de neige

Accentus / Equilbey

Naïve V4883 (39‘ · DDD · T/t). Buy from Amazon

Accentus’s phrasing is unfailingly sensitive to the verbal shifts of the poems and no less to the harmonic and textural shifts of Poulenc’s music. It’s unlikely that a non-French choir would be able to achieve these standards. Tuning and ensemble are impeccable, tone quality excellent and the varied textures sharply characterised within a spacious acoustic and with slightly distant recording.

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