LDV117

19 DAVID GRIMAL, ITAMAR GOLAN ‘Alas, it isn’t top-quality Poulenc’, said Francis Poulenc of his Violin Sonata. What do you think of that judgment? David Grimal: His remark suggests false modesty, or vanity – or else he was quite simply mistaken, because he wrote stuff much worse than this (laughter) ! In my opinion, this is top-quality Poulenc – it’s one of his masterpieces, even if he had a hard time getting it written. People wrongly place it in the ‘second division’ of twentieth-century sonatas, whereas it’s extraordinarily original, individual, acerbic, intimidating but at the same time very poetic, showing great stylistic imagination for the musical landscape of that time. Poulenc wrote a number of works for wind instruments, with which he felt comfortable, which wasn’t the case with bowed strings, even though the great violinist Ginette Neveu championed this sonata. David Grimal: This violent, sometimes awkward piece doesn’t flatter the violin. Some bars don’t sound natural on the instrument. So it’s not a comfortable work from a ‘petit bourgeois’ point of view, if you compare it to the Franck Sonata or the two by Fauré. I think Poulenc’s work is more in the line of descent from Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, with a tension, a struggle between the instruments. I recently listened again to recordings by Ginette Neveu in which I found a kind of straightforwardness, an honesty and an intensity that are perfectly suited to this sonata. Poulenc set the bar high, and in my opinion, he succeeded.