Les Biches: Suite

Rondeau

Adagietto

Rag-Mazurka

Andantino

Final

Poulenc’s fist ballet, Les Biches, was inspired by the paintings of Marie Laurencin, whose peculiarly doe-eyed creatures seem to have been inspired in their turn by the evocative double meaning of the French word “biche” – zoologically, “female deer” or, familiarly, “darling child.” Laurencin designed both the décor – basically a white drawing room with a large blue sofa – and the costumes for the 16 female and three male dancers. Bronislava Nijinka devised the choroegraphy, which was largely a matter of alignments and re-alignments with no definite story behind them, and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes gave the work its first performance at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo in January 1924.

The success of Les Biches was another tribute to the genius of Diaghilev, who was bold enough to commission a first orchestral score from a little-known composer in his early twenties. Naturally in the circumstances, Poulenc leant on Ballets Russes precedence and there is no doubt that Stravinsky’s Pulcinella was a decisive influence. The score of Les Biches is, however, more than imitation or neo-classical pastiche. There is a distinctively characteristic gamin or “naughty boy” quality about it and more structural virtue than most aesthetic moralists are prepared to concede.

The first movement of the concert suite, which incorporates the extensive revisions Poulenc made to the orchestration in 1939, has a far-reaching influence. Introduced by a cheerful trumpet, the main theme of the opening Rondeau (which is scarcely a rondo) reappears everywhere, more or less heavily disguised – as the second theme of the charmingly melodious Adagietto, as a faint allusion in the Rag-Mazurka (which not very rag-like and more tarantella than mazurka) and as the main theme of the graceful Andantino. Since the Finale (which really is a finale) is a brilliant reworking of the opening Rondeau, with a bit of the “rag” thrown in, the main theme is scarcely disguised at all.

Gerald Larner © 2008