16 BERG ∙ BRAHMS ∙ POULENC ∙ SCHUMANN Let’s start with the most recent work, which opens this disc: Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano. Michel Portal, you recorded it in 1971 with Jacques Février. Indeed, you also knew the composer and played for him . . . Michel Portal: I remember that Poulenc was quite prescriptive in the guidance he gave to performers. Above all, he was looking for a sound that went ‘upwards’. In this music, you have to advance gently, to keep constantly moving, but without trying to ‘jazzify’ it. I learnt a lot from Francis Poulenc. Jacques Février, with whom I recorded the piece, insisted on keeping in strict tempo. That’s a long way from the vision of the Sonata’s creators, Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein. Michel Dalberto: Poulenc was a good pianist. I would say that he was admirably ‘schooled’ in music, knowing how to fabricate it, but never going beyond certain limits. To possess too much talent is no guarantee of genius. What’s more, Poulenc achieved success at a very early age – like Saint-Saëns – and, to borrow a phrase from the journalist Alain Lompech, he is one of those composers whose admirable art stopped short of genius. His music is not only very well written, but also very prescriptive for the performers: not much rubato, not much flexibility either. Above all, the performer has to adhere to a precise framework, the ‘framework’ characteristic of French music in general, which only a few figures like Debussy and Ravel stepped outside.
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