Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc was a French composer and pianist. His compositions include songs, solo piano works, chamber music, choral pieces, operas, ballets, and orchestral concert music. As the only son of a prosperous manufacturer, Poulenc was expected to follow his father into the family firm, and he was not allowed to enrol at a music college. Largely self-educated musically, he studied with the pianist Ricardo Viñes, who became his mentor.

The critic Claude Rostand famously described Poulenc as ‘le moine et le voyou’ – half monk, half rascal. Though legendary in Parisian social circles as a bit of a dilettante, the death of a close friend in 1936 prompted Poulenc to make a religious pilgrimage that led to a dramatic personal transformation.

While he retained something of the rascal throughout his career, much of the composer’s work after this time bears the hallmarks of a deep and abiding spirituality.