Paul Berkowitz has built a solid reputation with heavy-duty recordings of German composers. His complete Schubert piano sonatas, in particular, have earned him much praise.

The Canadian-born pianist has now turned his hand to very different French 20th century repertoire with Francis Poulenc’s piano works. Poulenc frequented avant-garde music and literary circles and came to fame in 1923 with his ballet Les biches. It is perhaps for his operas, written later in his career, that he is best known, for the gorgeous Dialogue des Carmélites (1956) and La Voix Humaine (1958), a short one act opera, where the singer speaks on the phone to a former lover.

In a new recording project, Berkowitz has chosen to introduce listeners to the composer’s lesser-known miniature piano works.

Poulenc wrote his Improvisations  between the late 1930s and 1950s. They are short vignettes capturing one motif or theme – several minutes long. Some are jaunty, spiky and very rhythmic and a nod to his reverence for Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring, in others you can hear the dances, Paris music hall and jazz of the time. In contrast on the album, there are extended, lyrical melodies, some of a metaphysical bent. One, in particularly, conjured the beauty and the infinite nature of a star-studded night sky. 

Berkowitz plays us these improvisations without gaps in between, thus we are given the impression of a one long extended work with frequent mood and style changes. Most pieces are devoid of proper titles, except where Poulenc pays homage to Edif Piaf or Schubert for example. Some improvisations finish before they have properly started.

Intermezzo no 3 in A flat major, was of particular interest, with its romantic, exploratory, Chopinesque style. In this longer 5-minute work, we seem to get a bit closer to Poulenc’s emotional state. There’s a yearning, possibly a separation from a loved one. Written in 1943, during the German occupation of France, it was conceived when Poulenc risked being carted away for his homosexuality. 

Mélancolie (1940) wraps up the album beautifully – a love song to a former lover.

Though we do hear glimpses of Poulenc’s sentimentalism on the album, the mood is playful, elusive-even, and the style exploratory. Paul Berkowitz plays these pieces with just the right balance of delicacy and spirit.

A well-curated album which will grow on you the more you listen to it…

KH

Piano Works Francis Poulenc, Paul Berkowitz out on Meridian