# Francis Poulenc trois pieces Toccata



## mankwok (Jun 10, 2013)

Poulenc is a famous French composer and a member of the Les Six.
I read on other websites that Poulenc is influenced by Debussy's music.
However, I have read something contradictive that Les six is a group of 6 French composers that oppose Impressionism and Romanticism. 
But I think Debussy is the figure for Impressionism?
Also, How do you think Debussy influence the composition of Poulenc?
And if anyone know what is the link between the Toccata in the Trois pieces with the other two, Pastorale and Hymne?
Thanks


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

From the late 1800's, Faure, Debussy, Ravel and then other generations of French composers were looking away from the current trend of late romantic musical style, its use of harmony, its less than clean shapes.

The French looked back to classicism, as others in Europe were beginning to do: others looked to the Baroque (Bach, Vivaldi, Haydn, Handel) to re-investigate those forms, even some of the instrumentation, while deploying modern harmony.

The French looked back to their baroque and early classicist composers, Rameau, Couperin, and for keyboard music, the other French "Clavecinistes." Debussy is also known for a 'glittering' quality to his piano sonorities and in his orchestral works. He is unique in that respect, with Ravel, even more straight classical, the next nearest. After that, the list of Impressionist composers almost dwindles off to nothing, with a few, far lesser, around these two giants. Impressionism really is almost all about the music of either Debussy or Ravel.

The influence is most direct in the emphasis on that neoclassicist approach. Of course there is too the harmonic approach of Debussy, where chords no longer were tied to harmonic function (as in the common period up through the romantic) us the second most direct influence. Poulenc, Milhaud, Jean Francaix, and a good number of others would not sound as they do without the influence of Debussy and neoclassicism.

Poulenc "played the field." His music, all of it, some lush, is still quite classicist clear. He was not much of a formalist (formally structured and related movements). He did have an innate genius for making movements which still, intuitively, seem very well related, or which seem to logically sit one to the next. You can hear this too, in his Sextuor and many other works, including some of his instrumental sonatas.
the first of its three movements...





Poulenc seems to be in a slightly different harmonic vein for each piece or set of pieces he wrote. Many of the piano pieces are mildly bi-tonal, his suite of Promenades a good example of a very lean and dry-sounding Poulenc vs. the more lush harmony Poulenc.

The trois pieces share not much but a similar harmonic world, with that "connectivity" being Poulenc's sense of what goes well after the first movement. There is not so much direct relation by theme, etc. from one to the next. They are but a short suite of three pieces. 





The toccata is huge fun. Recalling them, I might look at the first two and revisit the toccata 

I hope you enjoy working on them.


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