For many of the same reasons that Tenebræ texts attracted composers hundreds of years ago, composers like Paul Crabtree are drawn today. A prominent example of a 20th-century setting are the few Tenebræ settings by French composer Francis Poulenc (1899–1963).
Poulenc, lower right, at home with friends and his fox terrier.
Poulenc was born into a wealthy family and his father, Emile Poulenc, was from the Rouergue/Aveyron region of France, an area is known for its devoutly Catholic faith. Poulenc’s mother, Jenny, came from a family of artisan-craftsmen. His lineage is mixed and, as Poulenc liked to note, may be responsible for his life’s path. In 1904 at the age of five, Poulenc began to study piano and had it not been for his parents’ untimely death he would have studied at the Paris Conservatoire as a teen. Instead, he pursued private study with, most notably, Ricardo Viñes who, in addition to his musical and spiritual influence on Poulenc, introduced him to many prominent artists of the day including Erik Satie (1866–1925).
By the late 1910s, Poulenc began to receive his first commissions including the wildly-successful Les biches written in 1924 for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In the coming years major instrumental and vocal works were written and Poulenc’s reputation grew however no choral music was written. In fact, by 1935 only one of the nineteen choral works in his catalogue had been written. It was not until Poulenc returned to his faith that he turned to choral music.
Reading through interviews and conversations with Poulenc during 1936, it seems that this year was pivotal both in Poulenc’s life and compositional career. Indeed, that summer he was on a trip to Uzerche he learned that a dear friend—Pierre-Octave Ferroud—had been killed in a car accident in Hungary. The sudden event “stupefied” Poulenc and stirred him to consider the “frailty of the human condition.”
The two motets of Poulenc that BCE has programmed were written in this very period, specifically 1938. Check back tomorrow when NB posts a video recording of one: Tenebræ factæ sunt.
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