SOMM Recordings highlights the pianistic mastery of Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) with a release of extraordinary historic recordings including two of his four major concertante works and selected solo piano pieces. To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Erik Satie (1866–1925), this recording also features Poulenc performing piano gems by Satie, whose distaste for academic routine and Romanticism had a profound influence on Poulenc and the other members of the ad hoc music group, Les Six. These performances, ranging from 1930 to 1950, have been brilliantly remastered by long-time SOMM collaborator, Lani Spahr, about whose work Gramophone has said, “There are historic releases that make the grade because they are just that – ‘historic’ – and there are releases that make history because they are musically overwhelming.”

This release opens with Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for two pianos and orchestra, commissioned by American-born heiress Princess Edmond de Polignac specifically to be premiered by the composer and his friend, Jacques Février, at the International Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice in 1932. The vibrant colouration inherent in the piece was inspired by Balinese musicians whom Poulenc had heard at the Paris Colonial Exhibition of 1931. The performance heard here with Georges Prêtre conducting the Orchestre National de France was recorded the year before Poulenc’s sudden death, and again pairs Poulenc and Février, thirty years after they created the world premiere.

While on tour in New York during the winter of 1949/1950, Poulenc recorded selections of his piano music along with twelve of his favourite compositions by Erik Satie. Poulenc’s own music ranges from his earliest works, Trois mouvements perpétuelles, to the C major Nocturne from a set of eight, and the neo-classical Suite française of 1935 – a homage to his 16th century compatriot, Claude Gervaise.

Erik Satie was not as gifted a pianist as Poulenc, and his technical limitations largely confined his output to the shorter forms, particularly for piano, where his singular creative genius shone at its brightest. Amongst some of Satie’s deliberately absurd titles – like “Tyrolean Turk” and “Skinny Dance” – Poulenc also chose to record one each of Satie’s exquisitely crafted Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes.

Aubade (Morning Song), a 1929 concerto for piano and chamber orchestra of eighteen instruments, is the final work on this release. It exists as both a Concerto choréographique, based on the Roman myth of the virgin huntress Diana, and also a concert version, as heard here. The positive response to Aubade led to a commercial recording with the Orchestre Straram conducted by Walther Straram, the 78rpm discs capturing Poulenc’s only recording of this work.