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Guest post by Frances Jones

As a big fan of Poulenc’s music, I’m delighted to see his Concerto for Two Pianos on the Proms programme this year. It’s an exciting piece, both for performers and audience alike, and great to see in concert. But it’s the solo repertoire that occupies my thoughts at the moment, as I try to get to grips with another of his Nocturnes. I mentioned in a previous article back in May that I was working on the first Nocturne and although I haven’t made as much progress as I might in learning the rest, snatches of these sublime musical portraits have been flitting around my head like moths around a camp-fire (more on moths later).

There are eight Nocturnes, composed between 1929 and 1938 when Francis Poulenc was in his 30s. Some of them have descriptive titles, suggesting glimpses of civilised nocturnal scenes, and they alternate between the serenely beautiful and the fast and furious.

Number 1 falls into the first category; Poulenc’s ability to write a beautiful melody is proven in the opening bars, and he uses the range of the piano and takes unexpected harmonic turns as the music progresses. It is at once original, with an edge of melancholy, and also deeply comforting to listen to. Despite the discords, the music always resolves but almost never to a straightforward major chord; there’s always a note that ‘jars’ slightly with the rest. I like to think this is Poulenc’s way of telling us that, whilst there might be great beauty in the world, there is no such thing as perfection in life and his music does not intend to escape this.

Number 3, ‘Les Cloches de Malines’, gives us the bell-like sound promised in the title. He sets up an almost-repeated bassline to represent the bells, switching from 3 time to 4 time and back so it feels out of kilter; with Poulenc, there is always a twist. After being lulled into a false sense of security with the bells’ gentle music, there is a bar of complete silence, followed by a passage of brash accented chords, marked agité. It is as if the bells have gone rogue, and reminds me of one of Charles Dickens’ Christmas stories, in which the traveller is tormented by incessant ringing and imagines climbing up the church tower to the bells which have taken on frightening forms. He awakes in the morning and, of course, it’s all been a dream. So it is in this nocturne; after the clanging and clashing there’s another bar of silence and the familiar bassline of the opening returns; all is well, and normality has been restored.

The fifth nocturne is a portrait of moths (‘Phalènes’) and, as the music is both presto and staccato in the opening section, these insects seem to be clamouring around a light; a street-lamp perhaps, or a glint from a window. The music is animated and there’s no real let-up until the end. It switches between pp and f, even ff, from legato to staccato, until finally coming to rest with a big sforzando chord.

Number 7 is another of the faster pieces but this one is joyful from the outset. It was written in August, 1935; perhaps the composer was enjoying a summer holiday in the country or at the coast – but this is speculation. The music runs up and down the keyboard in a friendly chase. Even the middle section, steady and perhaps somewhat cautious if a depiction of a character was intended, lasts only a short time before the carefree melody of the opening returns. This nocturne has no title; it’s up to the listener to make their own conjectures.

The final nocturne, Number 8, was written as a coda to the collection. It’s another lyrical melody, but concise; a final moment of gentle beauty after the antics of the previous piece. Number 8 brings the cycle full circle, using the ending of the first nocturne to draw the piece, and the collection, to a close. Having listened to these pieces countless times, I feel I’ve gained a glimpse into the composer’s life. But only a glimpse and, after all, that’s what these nocturnes are; sounds of the evening, auditory shapes in the twilight. I like that about them; the titles of some give us ideas but, for the rest, we can make our own suppositions. I haven’t yet come close to learning all eight, but I feel much better acquainted with them, and that’s a good start.

Frances Jones read music at York University followed by a PGCE at Cambridge. She teaches piano in SW London.

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Guest post by Frances Jones

In the days before self-service machines, when library books were issued by hand and date-stamped, I would feel sorry when I opened a book to see it last stamped more than a decade before. I thought of the volume standing slightly lop-sided on the shelf, waiting for a person to stop and take it home. I’ve been feeling a similar way recently, as I take down off my shelf music that I haven’t looked at for years. One such collection is Francis Poulenc’s Three Novelettes, speckled with a scattering of pencil markings and an old PIN for a bank card. So last year I sat down and learned the first of the Novelettes, playing it in an informal concert for my students (they are very forgiving of my significant lapse in regular practice).

Even as I discover more of Poulenc’s piano music, Novelette No. 1 remains one of my favourite works by this French composer. Written in 1927, when Poulenc was about 28, it’s a joyful piece and full of character. The opening melody is serenely beautiful, and it always gives me a sense of calm. Enjoy this for its own sake, it’s saying; just listen, and stop rushing around. It floats over an arpeggiated bassline in C major and although there are discords, they are so subtle as to pass almost unnoticed. There’s then a minor section, where the discordancy becomes more obvious, but it’s over with quickly and after a lyrical passage we’re into a bawdy dance; I can just imagine drinkers stomping round the bar in days gone by. A reflective passage follows and we head away from the party back into the peaceful serenity of the opening theme, with the thick chords near the end sounding bell-like in their brightness.

Novelette No. 2 is, on first hearing, very different. It brings to mind, for me, a company of elves, cavorting around a woodland fire. The upbeat tempo, staccato articulation and use of the piano’s range helps conjure up this image. The melody is so dance-like, but light and quick, suggesting something other than even the most agile of human dancers. Introduced to this revelry is a stately tune that threatens to calm the festivities, but it lasts merely a few bars before tumbling down and jostling with the opening pixie theme, eventually succumbing in a ff glissando. The opening music returns, and the elves dance away into the night, sans relentir.

There is a third Novelette, which was written many years later, in 1959. For me, it feels like a separate piece; it’s based on a theme by Manuel de Falla, and is beautiful, yes, but also nostalgic and reflective with a tinge of melancholy. To me, it’s another example of Poulenc seeming to make the task of composition so easy. The melody soars above the bass and then appears in the middle of the piano before flying up again and ending at peace, or so I like to think.

I was introduced to Poulenc’s music through the ABRSM; Improvisation No 13 by Francis Poulenc was on the Grade 8 piano list around the turn of the millennium and I still have the collection. Written in 1958, this Improvisation is wistful and yearning; a composer looking back, perhaps. Poulenc had a playful nature, but there was a deeply serious side to his character, which is evident in so much of his work (his piano pieces are just a small part of his output). Poulenc’s writing is so expressive, and although there’s a melancholy air scattered across his piano music, somehow I always find it uplifting (with the possible exception of Mélancolie itself, written in 1945). It’s the ability to seemingly pluck a melody out of the air that I love; his writing is both graceful and perfectly formed, and with bursts of humour that show a different side of his personality.

Replaying the Novelettes has spurred me on to find more of Poulenc’s piano music. I love the first Nocturne but haven’t looked properly at the other seven, nor learnt the Impromptus. Despite the fact that attempting any of the above will be a challenge, I can’t wait.

Frances Jones read music at York University followed by a PGCE at Cambridge. She teaches piano in SW London.