Bach: Mass In B Minor – William Christie

   in Piano International (Jan, 2016)
As a listener, I often find a tension in Poulenc’s music between the trivial and the inspired; so it proves again in this beautifully produced disc of music for two pianos. If L’Embarquement pour Cythere (written in 1951 as an encore, or bombe- surprise) tends to the inconsequential, the early duet Sonata (1918, revised in 1939) is gently iconoclastic, while Elegie (1959) has true poetry in its pages. Best of all is the D minor Concerto (1932) with its haunting evocations of Balinese gamelan and Mozart, magically played by Lortie and Mercier. The programme is fleshed out significantly by the piano concertos (no place here for the lame Concert champetre transcription!) …