Aubade

An “aubade” is a morning song, associated with love. And the morning in this chic Parisian chamber score, originally written as a 20-minute ballet, is that of the goddess Diana—who wakes to another day of loneliness imposed on her by the divine requirements of chastity. This scenario was Poulenc’s own, reflecting personal frustrations at a time when he was struggling with his sexuality. And tempering the stark, spare neoclassicism of the music—whose more rhythmic moments suggest Stravinsky while the lyrical ones recall Mozart—is a melancholy that lends substance to an otherwise charmingly lightweight entertainment. The piece premiered in 1929 at a party in the Parisian townhouse of Poulenc’s patroness, the Vicomtesse de Noailles. And the particular nature of that event explains the forces involved: an odd combination of solo piano with 18 string, wind or percussion instruments but no violins. In fact, it sounds like a miniature keyboard concerto, which is how Aubade is usually done in concert these days. Without dancing, you just have to imagine Diana’s progress through the eight linked sections—heralded by brass fanfares and frantic pianism in the opening “Toccata”; attending to her toilette in a gracious “Presto”; succumbing to despair in an “Allegro féroce”; and disappearing into faery woodlands in an adagio “Conclusion” whose hypnotic repetitions steer the music to a mystical ending.