Performed and recorded at the 20e soirée des grands amateurs de piano, Paris, France, May 2022.
Piano I: Oliver Malle
Piano II: Gérard Bekerman
Conductor / Orchestra: François Boulanger / L’Orchestre de la Garde républicaine
Francis Poulenc's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor, FP 61, was composed over the period of three months in the summer of 1932. It is often described as the climax of Poulenc's early period. The composer wrote to the Belgian musicologist Paul Collaer: "You will see for yourself what an enormous step forward it is from my previous work and that I am really entering my great period." The concerto was commissioned by and dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac, an American-born arts patron to whom many early-20th-century masterpieces are dedicated, including Stravinsky's Renard, Ravel's Pavane pour une infante défunte, Kurt Weill's Second Symphony, and Satie's Socrate. Her Paris salon was a gathering place for the musical avant-garde.