A hugely enjoyable disc, its appeal heightened by superlatively clean and lifelike recording. The Poulenc who is presented here is the early composer, predominantly the light-hearted figure of irrepressible and infectious high spirits; and the Nash Ensemble respond with verve to his effervescence. With verve but also with finesse: the delicacy and crisp staccato it brings to the first movement, and the buoyant bounce to the finale, of the 1926 Trio (dedicated to Falla, who had not yet retired into asceticism) are delightful; and it dons a suitably straight face for the Andante (which I rather doubt is meant to be as ''utterly serious'' as Roger Nichols claims in his note). Both in this and the Sextet (and indeed in Le bal masque too) the piano—Poulenc's own instrument, of course—is allotted the lion's share, and Ian Brown deserves great credit for giving his part the requisite sparkle without submerging his excellent partners.
The Sextet, also finely balanced (both internally by the players and externally by the engineers), is a somewhat larger work, with more forceful writing in the first movement (as well as a conspicuous salute to his friend Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto), though this is interrupted by a marshmallow-sweet section, played here with the utmost tenderness. The finale starts off by continuing the cheeky gaiety of the central Divertissement but undergoes a last-minute conversion, transforming a defiant figure in a hieratic coda which seems to pay homage to Stravinsky's Symphony of psalms (composed only a couple of years previously).
The earlier Stravinsky of The soldier's tale is evoked in one of the purely instrumental movements of Le bal masque, a 'cantata' (in fact a suite) of manic humour which, in the composer's own view, represented the epitome of his style (in 1932) and the crystallization of the spirit of suburban Paris. Once again the Nash Ensemble capture its gamin frolics with delicious lightness, and Thomas Allen, admirably clear in his enunciation and faithful to the composer's every dynamic nuance, invests Max Jacob's surrealist poems with character—particularly the black humour of ''La dame aveugle''. (The hilarious puns of the ''Air de bravoure'' unfortunately defy translation.) The earliest work here, and Poulenc's first masterpiece, is the 1918 Le bestiaire, here performed in the original version for seven instruments, whose colour lends extra subtlety to these aphorisms (as for instance the dromedary's weary sighs on the bassoon). This is the one disappointment of this disc: a couple of slips in Allen's mostly good French may be forgiven, but in ''La carpe'', which should rightly go much more slowly, he fails to bring intensity to the words ''Que vous vivez longtemps!'' or ''poissons de la melancolie''. But the rest of the disc is a joy.'