This is splendidly vivid music, and the performances and recording are to match. Some people—among them myself—will find some of the sound a touch raw, not least the brass announcing the Aubade, but better that than being feeble in music that is so affirmative. Poulenc's piano writing is often awkward to manage but Tacchino copes well and gives it tremendous panache. The Piano Concerto, written some 20 years later in 1949, is a lovely piece, less obviously saucy than the Aubade but still with the composer's characteristic gamin charm and joie de vivre.
The Double Piano Concerto (1932) is another delightful work, with a couple of irresistible stylistic incursions of the Javanese gamelan music that the composer had recently heard in a Colonial Exhibition. This performance could have more affection, as did another recorded account with Poulenc himself and Jacques Fevrier (on EMI's Rouge et Noir label) and, no doubt, the performance that the composer gave with Britten in London in 1945 (how one would like to have that on disc!). But it is still enjoyable, and this issue is fine value at mid-price.'