Poulenc is the composer of the piano piece that Elio plays when Isaac and Mounir are over, just before Midnight. Thereโs not a lot of information out there for this piece. Hereโs what I found.
About the man
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His parents died when he was a teen. He was already a student of a pianist, but when his parents died, the teacher became a mentor.
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Despite having an instructor, he was largely self-taught.
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He was on friendly terms with Ravel (Une barqueโฆ), but didnโt see eye to eye with him about other composers, but doesnโt seem to ever have talked bad about Ravel. He always seem to respect the man, even if he didnโt respect the music.
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Poulenc was very devout, but also homosexual. He was having an affair with a painter named Richard Chanlaire when he also proposed to a woman. (She was involved with someone else, so she turned him down.) He sent Richard a copy of one of his works with the inscription: โYou have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working.โ Sounds a little like โWe had the stars, you and Iโฆโ from the book.
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In a letter to a friend, he said this about his feelings for Chanlaire:
> โHow happy I was to be able to confide to you my great secret, my grave secret. This amazing, but so anguishing love of which I spoke to you being now the sole raison dโรชtre [reason for existence] of my life, you understand how hard, due to this anomaly, it is to hide it.โ
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He would tell friends that he lost his sense of identity because of his feelings for Chanlaire.
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Although he never formally admitted it, it is believed that he fathered a daughter with a woman only known as Frederique.
Improvisation No. 15 in C Minor
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This piece is subtitled with โAn homage to Edith Piafโ.
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It is unknown if Poulenc and Piaf knew each other, but they did have friends in common. The tune is similar in tone to the songs Piaf would sing. Both died in 1963.
Anyone has the sheet of this please
