Concert champêtre

This is a piece that time-travels in sound—essentially between the 18th and the 20th centuries but sweeping through much of the intervening story of French music on the way. It takes a solo instrument, the harpsichord, that most of us would think of as Baroque and pairs it with a modern orchestra in modern harmonies. The outcome is the sort of shotgun marriage known these days as polystylism—unsettling but, in the hands of Poulenc, hugely entertaining: full of joy and sly wit. And the games start upfront with a title that translates as "Rustic Concerto", implying the pastoral charm of a bygone age but also something earthily robust. A fair description of the playing of the harpsichordist for whom the piece was written in 1928, Wanda Landowska. Landowska was a pioneering champion of the instrument in times when it was largely thought of as redundantly antique. She played a 1920s reproduction that was elephantine by comparison with graceful 18th-century originals, built like a tank but with a big sound that could hold its own against Poulenc’s orchestral writing. Latter-day performers playing more developed reproductions have a problem being heard but are still drawn to the concerto’s three engaging movements: a bright, Haydnesque “Allegro” with incursions into melodrama, prefaced by a pseudo-stately introduction; a graceful siciliana (“Andante”); and a positively riotous “Finale."