Concerto in G minor

One of the most prominent figures in artistic circles in Paris before the Second World War was Winnaretta Singer, daughter of the inventor of the sewing machine. Though not really the marrying kind, she twice married into the French aristocracy - which, together with the fortune she inherited from her father, gave her an unassailable position in society and unparalleled influence on Parisian musical life. Now known as the Princesse de Polignac, she gave encouragement and support to generations of composers and regularly presented concerts at her palatial home, which had a “grand salon” with seating for 250 and a smaller “atelier” with its own Cavaillé-Coll organ built in. It was for the Polignac studio organ that Poulenc was commissioned to write his Concerto in G minor with its necessarily small accompanying ensemble of strings and timpani.

Having already fulfilled another Polignac commission, the Concerto for Two Pianos, with remarkable rapidity, Poulenc got to work on the new project without misgivings. “I am writing a Concerto for organ and strings,” he declared in October 1934. “It’s madly amusing and I already have plenty of ideas.” In fact, it would not be ready for performance until four years later. The problem was that between accepting the commission and completing it - shocked by the death of a friend in a particularly horrific road accident and restored to his Catholic faith by his first encounter with the Black Virgin of Rocamadour in the Dordogne - Poulenc had undergone a spiritual conversion that had to be reflected in his music. The Organ Concerto had “cost many tears,” he said, but he hoped it would be the beginning of a new period in his development: “It is not the entertaining Poulenc of the Concerto for Two Pianos but rather a Poulenc on his way to the cloisters.”

Poulenc was helped on his way to the cloisters by the sound of the opening bars of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV 542. It is unmistakably recalled at the beginning of the Organ Concerto and, although the gesture is heard in this form only four times in the course of the work (twice in the Andante introduction and twice more in the closing Largo section) it is of fundamental importance. It not only forms a robust framework to a loosely articulated single-movement fantasia construction but also inspires some of the melodic material of the intervening episodes. An essential agent in Poulenc’s synthesis of ancient and modern here was Stravinsky, who had been that way before him. The ominous sounds on timpani and pizzicato basses under the organ part in the opening section of the Concerto are a clear echo of the closing bars of Oedipus Rex.

It is no disparagement of Poulenc to identify the influence of Stravinsky which, as he himself was happy to acknowledge, was a fundamental element of his musical personality. “I often ask myself,” he once said, “if Stravinsky hadn’t existed would I have written music?” Stravinsky is recalled again in the balletic Allegro giocoso, urgently initiated by the strings in response to the challenging dissonances on the organ at the end of the introduction, and yet again in the following Andante moderato. At the same time, however, that central slow movement - in the soloist’s apparently spontaneous development of the Bach motif and the serene scoring for strings - is one of Poulenc’s most thoughtful and most personal inspirations.

The surprisingly vehement ending of the Andante moderato and the dramatic transition to the next section represent the turning point in both structural and expressive terms. In spite of the implications of their respective tempo directions, the Allegro molto agitato is much less agitated than the Allegro giocoso. A religiously contemplative slow section marked Très calme confirms the new emotional situation. On the recall of the first Allegro, urgency is replaced by radiance and, although the Bach gesture duly intervenes in its original challenging harmonies, it is persuaded into a friendly compromise in the closing bars.

One of the most prominent figures in artistic circles in Paris before the Second World War was Winnaretta Singer, daughter of the inventor of the sewing machine. Though not the marrying kind, she twice married into the French aristocracy - first to the Prince de Scey-Montbéliard and then, after an early annulment, to the elderly Prince Edmond de Polignac - which, together with the fortune she inherited from her father, gave her an unassailable position in society and unparalleled influence on Parisian musical life. She gave encouragement and support to generations of composers and regularly presented concerts at her palatial home, which had a “grand salon” with seating for 250 and a smaller “atelier” with its own Cavaillé-Coll organ built in. It was for the Princesse de Polignac’s studio organ that Poulenc was commissioned to write his Concerto in G minor with its necessarily small accompanying ensemble of strings and timpani.

Having already fulfilled another Polignac commission, the Concerto for Two Pianos, with remarkable rapidity, Poulenc got to work on the new project without misgivings. “I am writing a Concerto for organ and strings,” he declared in October 1934. “It’s madly amusing and I already have plenty of ideas.” In fact, it would not be ready for performance until four years later. “Never since I have been writing music have I had so much trouble in finding my means of expression,” he confessed to Winnaretta in May 1938, “but I hope it has now sprung forth without showing too much effort.” The problem was that between accepting the commission and completing it - shocked by the death of a friend in a particularly horrific road accident and restored to his Catholic faith by his first encounter with the Black Virgin of Rocamadour in the Dordogne - Poulenc had undergone a spiritual conversion that had to be reflected in his music. The Organ Concerto had “cost many tears,” he said, but he hoped it would be the beginning of a new period in his development: “It is not the entertaining Poulenc of the Concerto for Two Pianos but rather a Poulenc on his way to the cloisters.”

Poulenc was helped on his way to the cloisters by the sound of the opening bars of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV 542. It is unmistakably recalled at the beginning of the Organ Concerto and, although the gesture is heard in this form only four times in the course of the work (twice in the Andante introduction and twice more in the closing Largo section) it is of fundamental importance. It not only forms a robust framework to a loosely articulated single-movement fantasia construction but also inspires some of the melodic material of the intervening episodes. An essential agent in Poulenc’s synthesis of ancient and modern here was Stravinsky, who had been that way before him - not least impressively in Oedipus Rex, which the Princesse de Polignac had sponsored in a big way by paying over the odds for a private preview performance in her “grand salon” in 1927. The ominous minor thirds on timpani and pizzicato basses under the organ part in the opening section of the Concerto are a clear echo of the closing bars of Oedipus Rex.

It is no disparagement of Poulenc to identify the influence of Stravinsky which, as he himself was happy to acknowledge, was a fundamental element of his musical personality. “I often ask myself,” he once said, “if Stravinsky hadn’t existed would I have written music?” Stravinsky is recalled again in the balletic Allegro giocoso, urgently initiated by the strings in response to the challenging dissonances on the organ at the end of the introduction, and yet again in the following Andante moderato. At the same time, however, that central slow movement - in the soloist’s apparently spontaneous contrapuntal development of the Bach motif and the serene scoring for strings - is one of Poulenc’s most thoughtful and most personal inspirations.

The surprisingly vehement ending of the Andante moderato and the dramatic transition to the next section represent the turning point in both structural and expressive terms. In spite of the implications of their respective tempo directions, the Allegro molto agitato is much less agitated than the Allegro giocoso. A religiously contemplative slow section marked Très calme confirms the new emotional situation. On the recall of the first Allegro, the G minor urgency is replaced by G major radiance and, although the Bach gesture duly intervenes in its original harmonies, it is significantly deprived of its minor intervals in the closing bars.

The Princesse de Polignac declared herself “very proud” of her Organ Concerto when it was first peformed by Maurice Duruflé (with Nadia Bolounger conducting) on her Cavaillé-Coll in December 1938. The first public performance, again with Duruflé as soloist (but with Roger Désormière conducting), took place in the Salle Gaveau six months later.