-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 - 30 January 1963)
-Orchestra: Anima Eterna
-Conductor: Jos van Immerseel
Suite française (d'après Claude Gervaise), for winds, percussion & harpsichord, written in 1935, FP 80
00:00 - I. Bransle de Bourgogne
01:33 - II. Pavane
03:50 - III. Petite marche militaire
04:53 - IV. Complainte
06:24 - V. Bransle de Champagne
08:00 - VI. Sicilienne
10:02 - VII. Carillon
Commissioned to provide incidental music for La Reine Margot, a play by Edouard Bourdet about Margaret of Valois, wife of the future King Henry IV of France, Poulenc raided a collection of dances from the characters' period, the sixteenth century. His source was Claude Gervaise's Livre de danceries; his techniques in manipulating the music, however, were entirely his own. Poulenc employed a harpsichord for period color (a harp or piano may substitute, to lesser effect), but otherwise he used a contemporary wind ensemble (pairs of oboes, bassoons, and trumpets and three trombones), plus modest percussion. Poulenc doused the old tunes in his characteristically impertinent, sour harmonies, creating something that sounded both antique and modern.
The concert suite falls into six movements. The first, "Bransle de Bourgogne," has the sense of an intrada with its snappy snare drum rolls punctuating phrases traded among the woodwinds, brass, and sometimes even harpsichord. The "Pavane" begins and ends as a brass chorale, the middle section appropriated by woodwinds. The "Petite marche militaire" is, as its title suggests, short and bellicose, but the piece is so fast that it's more of a fanfare than a march. The fourth movement falls into two sections. "Complainte" arrives as a mournful oboe solo given a spidery response from the harpsichord, with the full woodwind complement soon taking control of the melody. This is followed by an unusually stately and dignified "Bransle de Champagne." Fifth comes a "Sicilienne," another stately piece in which brass phrases are answered by the harpsichord, and once by the woodwinds. The concluding "Carillon" is a perky theme, in some ways an extension of the opening "Bransle de Bourgogne," played in moderate tempo and shifted back and forth from brass to woodwinds to harpsichord, the three instrumental elements only rarely overlapping.
[allmusic.com]