The gulf between Schubert( a speciality of Paul Berkowitz's)_and Poulenc could hardly be wider. Schubert's limitless range is the reverse of Poulenc's seductive limitation, his teasing gaiety, his 'buttery melodies spiked with rug pulls' his mix of pain and laughter, his poetic ambivalence. At his finest Poulenc is the epitome of Gallic elegance, wit, charm and perhaps above all the quality of 'tendresse' an ultimate gentleness beneath his whimsy. His Puckish nature ensures that you never know quite where you are, a sudden shaft of seriousness can go into reverse. Poulenc was a master of the 'volte face.' Described as half monk, half naughty boy, Poulenc's unstable nature shifted from one thing to another, from merriment to depression, from vaudeville to high seriousness. For Nadia Boulanger he was 'entirely paradoxical. You could meet him in fashionable Parisian circles...or at Mass. Like Rouault's paintings of clowns, you are made aware of a desolation beneath the mask. Herein lies his beguiling and unsettling appeal.
Many of these characteristics are captured by Paul Berkowitz with a musical honesty that scorns affectation or exaggeration. It is all too easy to caricature caricature and Berkowit turns away from a tempting archness and elaborate show of sophistication. In the first set of 'Improvisations' he captures much of No 4's air of bustling self-importance, contrasted with the lyricism he finds In No 7, a sense of writing which can cause a sudden shift in the listener's perspective. Elsewhere, Poulenc could always be heart-stopping when he chose. Elsewhere Berkowitz, not surprisingly, relishes the rumbustious mock-Schubert waltz of the second 'Improvisation from the 1941 set.
Yet overall, such worthiness means that you are given more sense than sensibility. I would have liked more 'give' in Poulenc's haunting tribute to Edith Piaf, music of an apt bitter-sweet fragrance, and you will need to look elsewhere for a greater sense of yearning in the third of the Novelettes, a further tribute, this time to Manuel de Falla's ultra- Andalucian temperament. The 'Presto' could benefit from more virtuoso fizz(it is dedicated after all to Vladimir Horowitz) and the Theme and Variations which range from 'joyeuse' to 'noble,' from 'sarcastique' to 'melancolique would once more gain from less reserve and greater variety Then there is 'Melancolie' which needs more of the lovelorn, of tears and sighs captured in the poem, 'Paths of my love/Try to find you always/lost paths, you don't exist anymore,/ And your echoes have been muffled.'
As a cross section view of Poulenc's endearing art this is admirable as far as it goes but you only have to turn to Antonio Pompa-Baldi's own special tribute to both Poulenc and Edith Piaf entitled 'The Rascal and the Sparrow' to hear playing of a greater poetic and pianistic ambition Moura Lympany's early recording of the first of the three Novelettes is a marvel of disarming simplicity and Stephen Hough is cool-headed and enviably poised in 'Melancolie.' Paul Crossley's' Sony recording of the complete piano works pays rich—over rich—dividends, a heady reaction to all possible dryness, to the Ecole Severe or a literalness thought to be 'le bon ton'(good taste).
I can only add that I was stung to the quick by the one-time head of a keyboard department I taught in for some years who commented, 'I detest Poulenc,' a mild rebuke when compared to Paul Vidal of the Paris Conservatoire who condemned music he termed 'disgusting, inept, a load of tasteless garbage.' Each to their own, but really...
Bryce Morrison