Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano

Although Poulenc was far happier writing for wind than for strings, and although he was himself a fluent pianist, the Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano gave him far more trouble than he anticipated. In fact, it took him more than two years to complete. After taking part in its first performance in Paris in May 1926, however, he was very pleased with it. While it is a vintage product of the holiday aesthetic shared by Poulenc with other members of the Groupe des Six at the time, its racy neo-classicism is not only heightened by a parodistic sense of humour but also softened by a fondness for sentimental melody.

At the soft heart of the first movement - after a wickedly pompous introduction in the manner of the French overture and the drily if cherfully articulated tunefulness of the first part of the Presto - is a warmly harmonised piano melody so expressive that it moves the oboe and bassoon to an emotional exchange of confidences at half the prevailing tempo. That piano melody is only briefly recalled in the abbreviated reprise of the Presto and is not to be heard at all in the central Andante con moto which, provoked apparently by repeated allusions to Gluck’s Blessed Spirits, develops its own passionate middle section. The piano melody does, on the other hand, make a late and somewhat hurried reappearance in the final Rondo - just in time to tie the volatile high spirits of this movement into the overall structure of the work.