Music
Pascal Roge, RCS, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
Four Stars
IN a self-indulgent sense, Friday lunchtime's tribute concert to the music of Francis Poulenc seemed to me one of the least-appropriately situated concerts I have attended. We should have been in a bar. We should have been drinking red wine and smoking pungent French fags (is one allowed to say that these days)? And in a perfect world we'd be beside the Seine and we'd have lunched, before the show, on a croque monsieur, or, if you like yours with a fried egg on top, the Madame of the species.
In the spirit of the place, the culture, and the unique French-ness of every nuance of Poulenc's utterly-French music, rolled out on Friday by the great Frenchman Pascal Roge in a delicious confection, as an unbroken continuum, we'd have proceeded, from lunch and music, in a thoroughly Gallic manner, to a passionate intellectual debate about what it is that makes French music, not least that of the engaging Francis Poulenc, so inimitably and unmistakably French.
Most of the answers lay in Roge's splendid recital, which richly-characterised and captured the flavours, accents and colours, from sentiment to wit, grace and charm, that were peppered through the selection of Mouvements perpetuels, Novelettes and, not least, the characterful Soirees de Nazelles. But there was more in Roge's playing: did you spot the freedom of form he found within the classical outlines of Ravel's Sonatine? There was something very French in it. And above all, did you notice the complete absence of percussive touch in the first of Satie's Gymnopedies? Is there a different concept of touch in this music? You tell me.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article