Decca have already had a go at reassembling three of these Poulenc recordings (Enterprise, 7/90), but now, with two discs at their disposal, those wishing to acquaint themselves with major works of his written over a 30-year period have a splendid opportunity to acquire them at a low price. Claude Rostand famously called Poulenc “part monk, part street-urchin” (which Decca mistranslate as “rebel”, which he wasn’t); but in these seven works there is little trace of the former category. Even the one religious work, the Gloria, has a jubilation, Stravinskian perkiness and sensuous lyricism that couldn’t be termed monastic; perhaps closer to that description is the Organ Concerto, with its patent homage to Bach. The performance and recorded quality of both of these are of top quality, as is that of the warm and witty Piano Concerto – probably the best now in the catalogue, Roge opting for a slightly more thoughtful first movement than usual. Why Decca chose to pass over the excellent version of the two-piano Concerto by Roge and Deferne (on the same original disc) in favour of that by Eden and Tamir from nearly a quarter of a century ago I can’t imagine: it’s not bad, but it doesn’t have the same elan, the Mozartian gesture of the slow movement is not very sensitively handled, and the orchestra show some duff moments. The same artists play cleanly in the two-piano Sonata (in which can be heard some anticipation of the Dialogues des Carmelites) but sound a bit unsmiling and earnest, even in the giocoso finale.
Everything mentioned so far is very acceptable, however (and some, as I have indicated, highly recommendable), but the remaining two works disappoint, the Sextet (brilliantly though it is played) because of a wildly excessive reverberation in an unsuitable recording venue, the Concert champetre (which was overscored by Poulenc, who in 1927 had little idea of the sonority of the then unfamiliar harpsichord) because instead of bringing the solo instrument into the sonic foreground the recording team allowed it to sound distant and puny. Ah well, I suppose one can’t have everything.'