In his musical aesthetics, Françaix was close to the ‘Groupe des six’ from the outset and, in the connection between cheerfulness and elegance so typical of him, to Poulenc in particular. This applies especially to the Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, written in 1965, which the composer premiered in Maastricht with his daughter Claude on 26 November of the same year. It is not difficult to discern that Françaix was well acquainted with Poulenc’s Double Concerto when he composed his piece.
Of the six, the Paris-born Poulenc was probably the ‘most French’. Influenced by Surrealism and Apollinaire, on the one hand, and then to a large degree by Catholicism after roughly the middle of his life, he derived his stylistic elements from the greats of music history – from Mozart to Stravinsky. Most striking is surely the second movement of the concerto, representing a dialogue of the composer with Mozart.
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