Concerto for 2 Pianos and Orchestra in D Minor

Seriousness and humour coexisted in Poulenc’s music from the outset, the Concerto for Two Pianos (1932) being a case in point. The opening “Allegro ma non troppo” sets off exuberantly, but a slower middle section is more inward and ambivalent in its mood, with the return of the initial music soon curtailed by a passage of mysterious gamelan-like patterns that closes in uncertainty. The central “Larghetto” is centred on a winsome melody that aligns the music of Mozart with that of the Parisian café, the livelier central episode injecting a greater rhythmic animation. The final “Allegro molto” complements this with an élan that holds good throughout its contrasting episodes, some of them having a bittersweet edge, until the closing bars briskly dispel any such equivocation. Premiered by the composer and Jacques Février in Milan on 5 September 1932, the piece has since become a staple of the two-piano medium.