Francis Poulenc

We haven’t had an “esoteric pick of the week” for a while so let’s take a look at a seasonal piece.

The Gloria has a long and complicated history concerning its inclusion in the Catholic Mass. What can be said for sure is that the Gloria is based on the Gospel accounts of angels proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest” to the shepherds in the fields around Bethlehem on December 24, in the year zero.

The Gloria isn’t limited to Christmas, but since it’s based on the Christmas story in the Bible it has become a traditional part of the season. There are settings of the Gloria by composers such as Vivaldi and Puccini but we’re going with Francis Poulenc.

Poulenc, a French composer, is best known for his opera The Dialogues of the Carmelites. His Gloria might be his second most popular work. Yet Poulenc remains somewhat off the beaten path unless you’re a pianist.

Poulenc was part of Les Six. These six young French composers, which also included Arthur Honegger and Darius Milhaud, focused on writing short and sometimes ironic pieces of piano music influenced by the likes of Eric Satie.

His style as a 20th-century composer is somewhat conservative to the ear but that is probably why I like him. Poulenc is concise without being minimal and energetic without being frenetic. He is one of those composers such as Mahler or Bruckner, who collect not so much an audience as devotees.

The Latin text of the Gloria is well known since they’ve been repeating it in Europe for about 1800 years. It is easy to overlook the magnificence of the Catholic Mass since it is now in the vernacular instead of Latin. The ancient mystery is gone.

When we consider that the mass has been repeated daily all around the world for centuries then it takes on the stature of something we might want to pay a little attention to. I was not raised and am not Catholic but can’t help but feel admiration for the longevity of the mass.

Poulenc was raised Catholic and returned to his roots after the early death of a friend in the 1930s. The Gloria was premiered in 1961, just a few years before Poulenc’s death, but the music has a youthfulness about it in the opening movements before the inevitable introspection of the conclusion.

Poulenc obviously kept to his faith even if he wanted to marry Greta Garbo and live in Hollywood. The Gloria is one of the last legitimate compositions based on the traditional liturgy. The only other piece I can think of is Beatus Vir by Henryk Górecki. Of course, that is another esoteric piece.