No fewer than four of the five works recorded here by these Czech and French players were tombeaux (elegies) for fellow artists: only the Sextet (first performed in 1932 but revised seven years later) is Poulenc in his happy madcap mood (though also with extensive gentle wistfulness in all three movements). The Prague players throw themselves into it with rumbustious gusto, deftly tossing imitative scraps to each other, and in the middle movement making a neat return to the Andantino (a danger point for some ensembles). The horn uses a slight but not displeasing vibrato, and the piano balance with the winds is nicely judged for the most part, though a trifle heavy-handed at the start of the “Divertissement”. Poulenc was always happier with wind instruments than with strings, and over a period of a quarter of a century he made three attempts at a violin sonata before completing one in 1943 for Ginette Neveu, dedicated to the memory of the poet Lorca – and even then, after revising it in 1949, he himself considered it a failure. Its first movement (were fleeting recollections of Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov conscious, I wonder?) is nervily tense – a mood brilliantly conveyed here by Poulet and Devoyon; a sad, slightly Spanish-tinged “Intermezzo” (the first part of the work to be written) then leads into an angry, mordant Presto tragico. This is an absolutely splendid performance.
Once one has got used to the tuba-like tone and vibrato of this horn player, her assurance in the Elegie for Dennis Brain (very different as was his style) commands respect, though more nuances are possible in this work than she makes: the pianist is too forceful in the impassioned sections, as he also is in the Oboe Sonata (in memory of Prokofiev). The oboist gives a quite able and acceptable performance, best in the spiky sections of the central movement, but in other parts I have heard more imaginative treatment. For the Clarinet Sonata Parisian rather than the Prague players were chosen, and the outcome is a beautifully sensitive, idiomatic and most persuasive reading that leaves no doubt of Poulenc’s genuine feeling for his slightly older contemporary Honegger, to whose memory the sonata is dedicated. The disc would be worth acquiring for this alone.'