Poulenc is sumptuous, or can be when he chooses to be, let's give him that. But so much C20th music shifts in tone and tempo rather more than one of a sedate classical temper like me would like it to do.
I have been an admirer of Carolyn Sampson ever since her Monteverdi Vespers at the Proms some six years ago, was it. I found out too late sometime after that she was in an opera in which she took all her clothes off. Well, you win some and you lose some, I suppose. But here, in say the third of the sept repons, she gets a nice, sorrowful line of considerable elegance to explore and then the mood changes again. I have been worrying in recent weeks how much Western Music (especially, I think) depends on repetition and return for its effect as if we can't bear not to hear the same motif several times and can't incorporate it if we don't hear it a few times before moving on. But here, Poulenc offers some fine phrasing and powerfully moving music and I'm the first to complain that it doesn't linger long enough on an especially good bit.
Part 5, in which, 'Darkness covered the earth, whilst the Jews crucified Jesus' and Jesus cries out, 'My God, why hast thou forsaken me' is another, more sustained piece of abject suffering but where my indulgence in such profound grief would be indulged by Bach, Poulenc is always ready to move on.
This is a fine disc.It's my fault entirely if I come to it with some, but not extensive, knowledge of Poulenc, and expect his Tenebres to be like Couperin's or Charpentier's and his Stabat Mater to be like Pergolesi's. They are, though, in some ways, and are likely to sound more so when I've heard it more and become more accustomed to it.
The Stabat Mater is billed as 'for soprano, choir and orchestra' and, yes, those are the resources used. But I'm sorry if I seem to be in complaining mood but I think it should be 'choir, orchestra and soprano'. I had some joyous moments at the beginning when I suspected Poulenc had Pergolesi in mind but the choir is the main feature as it develops and Carolyn is less of a soloist than I expected and in more of a supporting role. It also put me in mind of the Durufle Requiem, which is a good thing and so I do intend to commend and celebrate, it is only that since the C18th composers had got there first and done things so well, those in the C20th had to find another way and that, at this stage at least, was more fragmentary. Stravinsky was still very much alive and the repercussions of modernism still very much being felt and so Poulenc did well to resist and maintain quite such a conservative approach. Perhaps it is only now that he might be given credit for that.
Carolyn gets one of her moments, perhaps somewhat operatically, in the 'Vidit suum',
Saw the Lord's anointed taken;
Saw her Christ in death forsaken,
Heard his last expiring cry.
The Latin somehow has the better line than the translation in 'Morientem desolatum' but if schools now have other curriculum priorities than language then there will be fewer of us in future who even have the opportunity to decide for ourselves.
We lost something somewhere. Poulenc has magnificent moments but at times can be lush, like Szymanowski, and it doesn't accord with the required desperation some times. I like it but I don't like it for long enough but I like it enough not to want my money back.
