Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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This is a disc to treasure. Should the Concert champêtre be performed on the piano? Poulenc said no, but did it often. Bollani's lightly pedalled sound is, for me, utterly convincing and the... — BBC Music Magazine, November 2007, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 24th Sep 2007
Catalogue No: AV2135
Label: Avie
Length: 73 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

November 2007

Orchestral Choice

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Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Excerpt, Poulenc: Concert champêtre

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Excerpt, Poulenc: Concert champêtre

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Excerpt, Poulenc: Concert champêtre

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Stefano Bollani, Filharmonic '900 del Teatro Regio di Torino
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Improvisation 13

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Stefano Bollani
Jan Latham-Koenig

Poulenc: Improvisation 15

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Stefano Bollani
Jan Latham-Koenig

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“From best new talent in 1998 to best musician and best album of 2006 in Italy’s Jazz Musica magazine polls, it is safe to say that Stefano Bollani’s star is in the ascendancy…” Ian Patterson on Stefan Bollani

Turin’s hidden musical diamond must be the superb Filarmonica ‘900 del Teatro Regio di Torino, a new force in the Italian orchestral scene. For their first CD they have chosen two remarkably talented musicians to partner them. Jan Latham-Koenig needs little introduction and is a renowned French music specialist. In addition to his award-winning DVD of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites (Arthaus), his recording of Ibert’s opera Persée et Andromede on AVIE (AV 0008) has been a significant success for the label.

Jan now returns to Poulenc with a recording of the complete ballet Les Animaux modèles, a rarity on record and deserving to be much better known. In the Concert champêtre he is joined by a young Italian pianist who is taking concert halls throughout Europe by storm. Best known for his jazz work, Stefano Bollani returns here to his Classical roots playing the piano version of the ‘Concert’ which is better known as a work for harpsichord and orchestra. Poulenc himself, however, performed the work himself as piano soloist. Bollani goes on to resurrect an almost lost tradition by elaborating on the two Improvisations written for the purpose by Poulenc. Jazz is never very far away!

Reviews

November 2007

This is a disc to treasure. Should the Concert champêtre be performed on the piano? Poulenc said no, but did it often. Bollani's lightly pedalled sound is, for me, utterly convincing and the balance between piano and orchestra is ideal.

2010

Poulenc's third and final ballet, Les animauxmodèles, was begun, he wrote, 'in the darkest days of the summer of 1940, and one way or another I wanted to find a reason for hope in the future of my country'. The fables of La Fontaine provided him with the plot and it was first performed on August 8, 1942, in occupied Paris (in the penultimate section, 'Les deux coqs', Poulenc mischievously quotes the song Non, non,vous n'aurez pas notre Alsace-Lorraine for an audience made up mainly of German officials).
Why we don't hear this delicious score more often is a mystery. Too many good tunes, probably.
Its eight movements are quintessential Poulenc with the characteristic mélange of harmonic and stylistic influences that make their composer's voice so unmistakable. There is also a good deal of self-plagiarising (spot the quotes from the Organ Concerto and the contemporaneous Babar the Elephant). Only one other recording is currently available, apart from the abbreviated version recorded by Georges Prêtre from 1966. The Turin players match the Parisians every step of the way with their incision, sure-footedness and sheer panache.
Stefano Bollini, whose career has been mainly in jazz, makes a good fist of the Concertochampêtre (commissioned by the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, of course, but sanctioned by the composer to be played on the piano as well), rounding off the disc with his own 'elaborations' of two of Poulenc's late Improvisations, No 13 from 1958 and No 15 ('Hommage à Edith Piaf'), from 1959, the last of the cycle.

December 2007

The Turin players match the Parisians every step of the way with their incision, sure-footedness and sheer panache. Stefano Bollini… makes a good fist of the Concerto champêtre… rounding off the disc with his own "elaborations" of two of Poulenc's late Improvisations, No 13 from 1958 and No 15 ("Hommage à Edith Piaf"), from 1959, the last of the cycle.

Poulenc: Les Animaux modeles

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