Poulenc, Francis. (1899-1963)

"Les Biches" - Autograph Musical Quotation

Two measure AMQS from the composer's "Les Biches," signed "Francis Poulenc," neatly penned on an album page mounted to a slightly larger sheet measuring 6 x 5 inches overall.

The ballet was premiered by the Ballets Russes in 1924 after Serge Diaghilev commissioned the young composer to write a piece based on Glazunov's "Les Sylphides." Instead, Poulenc produced a work based on the paintings of Watteau depicting Louis XIV and various women in his "Parc aux Biches," the title word generally translated as "hind." Poulenc described his work as "a contemporary drawing room party suffused with an atmosphere of wantonness, which you sense if you are corrupted, but of which an innocent-minded girl would not be conscious." In "The Rest is Noise" (2007), Alex Ross notes that "Poulenc would write more substantial scores - he had the richest, most surprising career of any of Les Six - but Les Biches retains its nasty champagne kick after all these years." (11551)

AMQS Classical Music