Word: poulenc
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...operatic style is more closely wedded to its native language than the small but heady French repertory. Its best composers, from Rameau to Poulenc, created music that wraps itself tightly around every inflection of the spoken word. Without French-born singers who can respond instinctively to the language embedded in the music, French opera is likely to languish-which is just what has been happening at New York's Metropolitan...
Once the Harvard Glee Club stepped out on stage, however, the Princetonians were definitely out-classed. Under Elliott Forbes the Glee Club sang works of composers ranging from the late Renaissance Claudin de Sermisy and the mid-Baroque Dietrich Buxtehude to the sardonic child of the Twenties, Francis Poulenc. Theirs was a full-bodied sound, with the kind of focus and control that was totally absent in the Princeton group. The latter has the same basic sensitivity, but they lack the sheen and polish that make the Harvard Glee Club so irresistible in spite of everything. Both groups suffered from...
...Paris, stock values climbed an average 10% during August, blue chips have gone up by an average 25%, and some (such as Rhone-Poulenc and Michelin) skyrocketed by 40% or more. Yet the French economy remains in the doldrums. Unemployment is high, industrial production is sluggish, and most French businessmen are worried about the July 1, 1968, deadline when disappearing Common Market tariff barriers will expose them to harsher competition. Reasons for the stock climb: Bourse prices simply got so low that they began to look like bargain-basement buys to investors throughout Europe; the French government intervened to inspire...
...great deal in common with the songs of Faure. Miss Fuerstman, who is studying for a Masters in voice at the Manhattan School, failed to achieve a sense of phrasing in the more declamatory songs; elsewhere, however, she exhibited a rare blend of spirit and control. Both compositions of Poulenc suffered from problems of balance...
Joan Fuerstman's dark yet well-focused mezzo-soprano was the highlight of the evening. Besides the Poulenc she sang Ravel's Deux chansons hebraiques, which contrasts the rhapsodically set Hebrew poetry of the "Kaddish" with the simple Yiddish wisdom of "L'Enigme eternelle." She closed the program with a performance of the Siete Canciones populares Espanoles of Manuel de Falla. Both works date from 1914 and were perfectly suited to her expressive temperament. She performed them with an unostentatious professional polish that was pleasing to hear...