Run Time: Approx. 28 minutes

Francis Poulenc was a late arrival to music. His father was a successful manufacturer who wanted his son to join the family business, barring him from entering conservatory training. He did study piano privately, and when his parents died, his piano teacher and mentor Richardo Viñes introduced him into the world of Paris’s burgeoning young musicians. Eventually, he joined up with a group of prominent composers that called themselves Les Six. Amongst his five compatriots was Darius Milhaud.

Poulenc was often dismissed by his contemporaries for writing music they viewed as “unserious,” that hewed too closely to the types of popular songs heard in saloons and burlesques. Poulenc, for his part, admitted to a love of what he referred to as the “adorable bad music,” owing, he said, to his mother’s affinity for it. Guilty pleasure though it may be, the infusion of this bubbly style gives his music a pleasing approachability. And if I may inject a personal observation: composers accused of unseriousness or kitsch are often guilty of nothing more than the power to write a really catchy tune.

I am, however, hesitant to describe this music as entirely unserious. The first movement is lush and earnest, with an intriguing combination of Broadway-esque flare, warm romanticism, and glassy Impressionistic textures colored by satisfying harp glissandos. The third movement, too, offers a gentle and contented Andante that employs the varied timbres of the wind section much like the impressionist painters deployed color.

Easy listening as it may be, the piece seems to capture the intrinsic spirit of the city—or at least our American view of it. It saunters by, effortless, unhurried, perhaps a little indulgent, and endlessly charming.