Antwerp, January 7, 2024: an intimate birthday celebration for Francis Poulenc. In an unheated rehearsal space, the guests' breath forms small clouds, but there's candlelight in abundance and the musicians let the champagne flow freely. Soprano Naomi Beeldens sings with a vocal timbre as if she were born in Paris, and the guests find themselves for a few hours in the circles of Satie, Les Six, and Jean Cocteau, at a soirée in Montmartre. After this delightful overture, the musical collective Les Âmes Perdues will carry their passion for the birthday composer throughout the year in four salon evenings, each one shedding light on a different aspect of the eclectic Poulenc: religion, queerness, poetry, and cabaret.
The first salon "Pray for Peace", which takes place on March 8 in a church, they announce as a (eucharistic) celebration devoted to Poulenc's religious works. They dream aloud of nuns, gay men (or are they oboes?) and habits. Of a lecture on Poulenc's religious epiphany in Rocamadour. Of scenes from Poulenc's legendary opera Dialogues of the Carmelites, complete with the obligatory guillotine and a chalice of altar wine.
Les Âmes Perdues—it could be the title of a Poulenc song. How did you choose the name of your collective?
Isaak Duerinck, pianist: No, we chose that name very instinctively based on our graduation production (2018) about the 1920s in Paris. I wrote my thesis on the influence of entertainment music such as jazz, music hall, circus, and chanson on Poulenc's life and work. Naomi graduated with the production La Voix Humaine, which I also contributed to. Les Âmes Perdues sounds nostalgic, which suits us well. Ewout Lehouq, Naomi, and I feel like old souls in modern, fast, neo-liberal times where we're trying to find our way and aren't afraid to use technological tools to do so.
PIANO
Poulenc never set foot inside a conservatory; his mother taught him piano, and at 16 he received private lessons from Ricardo Viñes. He went on to become a highly accomplished concert pianist and accompanist who traveled half the world with baritone Pierre Bernac, among others.
Gabriel Tacchino, who only passed away last year, was the only student Poulenc ever had, and you studied with him, Isaak. How did that come about and what do you take from it?
ID: One day—it must have been 2018—I actually received a Facebook friend request from Gabriel Tacchino, who was already over 80 at the time. Perhaps his assistant was trying to expand the old master's network a bit? I went to play for him, and after a masterclass in Turin, I decided to study with Tacchino for a year at the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
Poulenc had met Tacchino when he was the celebrated pianist of the young guard, championed by von Karajan. Even during his lifetime, Poulenc was deeply concerned about who would perform and record his works after his death. It was his fervent wish that Tacchino would take this on, and so he gave him extensive piano lessons and passed on all the trade secrets about performing his music. For me, it was simply fantastic to be able to get so close to Poulenc himself through Tacchino, both pianistically and through the many stories I heard and through my numerous visits to Parisian cultural life. He taught me about the metronome, fingerings, phrasing, playing straight through, clarity, and the pedal—one of Poulenc's obsessions. Add butter to the sauce, he said, because for Poulenc you could never use too much pedal. On the one hand, he loved la clarté française and his music is quite clear; the score is never really dense, the chords are always clearly audible. On the other hand, he wanted the colors and harmonies to blend together by immersing them in a halo of pedal. In any case, studying with Tacchino made me a better pianist, something I'll always be grateful for.
A MONK AND A ROGUE
Francis was the son of the devout Catholic Émile Poulenc, from the countryside of Aveyron and co-founder of the pharmaceutical company Rhône-Poulenc. His mother Jenny Royer was a lighthearted Parisian who played piano beautifully and also loved light music, that adorable bad musicMusic journalist Claude Rostand gave us Poulenc's label "half monk, half rascal."
What else would you add to those two extremes?
ID: Poulenc was always seeking middle ground—the moment he arrived somewhere, he wanted to leave. He was a city person with a yearning for nature. He was a society figure you could meet at salon evenings, including at the home of the Princesse de Polignac, but then he'd get homesick for his country estate, Le Grand Coteau, in Noizay. Once there, he'd throw parties because he missed Paris. Poulenc had a very serious side, as will emerge in our first salon, but his letters show he had a solid sense of humor and could be quite sharp-tongued. He suffered from anxieties and insecurities. Poulenc wasn't a modernist, but one of the last composers working in the melodic, Romantic tradition, which made him uncertain. Would Boulez, Ligeti, and the young guard find him interesting? His taste and style also knew extremes—one day he'd write a religious cantata and the next day a lightweight entertainment piece. At twenty, he sold a collection of Beethoven's music to buy a ticket to a Maurice Chevalier concert. Furthermore, his homosexuality and complex relationships caused him considerable inner conflict. He was a hypochondriac Burgundian who ultimately at age 64e died of a heart attack.
PRAY FOR PEACE
During a vacation in Limousin, Poulenc learns of the death of talented French composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud, who died horribly in a car accident in Hungary and was decapitated. The gruesome death of his young colleague affects him so deeply that he decides to undertake a pilgrimage with Pierre Bernac to Rocamadour, where the Black Virgin is venerated—back then it wasn't yet a tourist attraction.
"While I was reflecting on the fragility of existence, the spiritual life suddenly drew me in again. Rocamadour brought me back to the faith of my childhood. This holy place, certainly the oldest in France, had everything it took to convert me." Francis Poulenc.
On August 22, 1936, Poulenc experiences a mystical moment in Rocamadour, after which he intensively searches for his religious roots. From then on, he composes much more choral and religious music.
In the first salon, Les Âmes Perdues presents excerpts from 'Litanies à la Vierge Noire,' a choral work that Poulenc begins sketching the evening after his revelation. He had bought a replica of the wooden statue of the Black Madonna and acquired the text of her litanies, which he set to music. They will also perform some of Poulenc's piano pieces, the three-voice motet 'Ave Verum Corpus,' excerpts from his very last composition, the Sonata for oboe and piano from 1962, in which he quotes himself. Perhaps a quick prayer before death? Les Âmes Perdues dedicate the evening to all victims of the wars currently raging in the world, and particularly in Gaza. So the hauntingly beautiful 'Pray for Peace' cannot be missing—a song for soprano and piano from 1938, with text by the 15the century poet Charles d'Orléans.
For Isaak Duerinck, the opera 'Dialogues of the Carmelites,' especially the final scene, ranks among the most beautiful things ever written.
How will you make the falling heads sound when the nuns and Blanche are beheaded on the scaffold?
ID: Oh, we're still very much working on that. Our first salon is perhaps logistically the "most challenging" to bring to life with a small collective. Of course, we're calling on friendly singers and musicians to collaborate. We don't have an orchestra at our disposal, but we're putting all our creativity, youthful energy, and possibly a synthesizer to good use—experimenting with modest means, presenting large works in reduced form, and thus expressing our love for Poulenc. Francis would surely have appreciated that.
“Pray for Peace", Friday, March 8, 2024 at 8:00 PM in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Mechelsesteenweg 135 in 2018 Antwerp. Free admission.
The following salons are on May 10: Francis 'Queer' Poulenc, October 4: Poulenc, the song composer of poets Apollinaire, Éluard, Max Jacob, Louise de Vilmorin, ... and December 6: a closing celebration in cabaret style.
The core of Les Âmes Perdues consists of ISAAK DUERINCK (b. 1994) pianist, accordionist, instructor at the Antwerp Conservatory. NAOMI BEELDENS (b. 1988), soprano, performer with a passion for music theater, contemporary and experimental music, is a coach for Artistic Final Projects at the Royal Conservatory. EWOUT LEHOUCQ (b. 1987) performer, cellist, bass-baritone and countertenor.
