Le Petit Prince English

Michaël Levinas - Le Petit Prince - Orchestre de Picardie, Arie van Beek (2017) {Claves Records}
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© 2017 Claves Records
Classical / Modern Classical / 21st Century / Opera

World Premiere Recording. Born in Paris, Michael Levinas went through the classical and high level teaching of the National Superior Conservatory of Paris, working at the same time with the famous class of accompaniment, orchestra conducting and composing. In that institution he met the great musicians who made the deepest impression on him, in particular, the pianists Vlado Perlemuter, Yvonne Lefébure, and also Yvonne Loriod to whom he showed his first works.

A few of these small choral gems are well known to amateur choirs, and Poulenc's secular choral pieces are more often presented one at a time on choral albums than in the groupings in which they were originally included. Francis Poulenc: Secular Choral Music offers the composer's very first choral piece, the Chanson à boire for men's voices (1922), but most of the music here dates from either the late '30s (the Petites voix, for female or children's voices, and Sept chansons) or the World War II era (Un soir de neige), the folk-song settings entitled Chansons françaises, and the ambitious Figure humaine, whose final number, "Liberté," was dropped in sheet music form over French cities by Britain's Royal Air Force. Someone once described Poulenc as "part monk, part hooligan," and these a cappella choral works give evidence of both tendencies. The Chansons françaises are cheerful pieces with just a shade of extended harmony, almost French counterparts to Bartók's folk song settings, while the more serious pieces, such as "Un chien perdu" (A Lost Dog), from the Petites voix, have a mystical tinge that links them strongly with Poulenc's better-known sacred choral music.