Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano

Trio pour hautbois, basson et piano
Chamber music by Francis Poulenc
The orchestra, painting by Edgar Degas. In the foreground in the center, the bassoonist, one of the three instrumentalists of the trio of Poulenc with the oboist and the pianist
Catalogue	FP 43
Composed	1926
Dedication	Manuel de Falla
Performed	2 May 1926 (1926-05-02): Paris

The Trio pour hautbois, basson et piano (Trio for oboe, bassoon and piano), FP 43, by Francis Poulenc is a piece of chamber music, composed in 1926.

Composed at Cannes in 1926, the trio is dedicated to Manuel de Falla, who particularly appreciated it. It was created on 2 May 1926 at the same time as the Chansons gaillardes.

Biographer Henri Hell praises this new piece of chamber music by specifying "the perfect coherence of its construction of an equilibrium as innate, that does not spoil any length, no development". The trio will be revived on 27 May 1959 at the concert of the salle Gaveau in Paris celebrating the 60th anniversary of the composer.

If several themes recall Mozart, notably the first measures of the Andante, this trio is considered by some to be the first important work of the composer's repertoire of chamber music because it intensely reflects the personality of Poulenc.

Like most of the composer's works of chamber music, this trio has three movements on the vif - lent - vif model:

A short introduction in chords played on the piano precedes the introduction of a humorous melody to the bassoon. The oboe enters its treble, joined by the piano and the bassoon. The introduction leaves room for the "muscular and spiritual" in the words of Henri Hell. It is a kind of French overture.

The piano exposes the theme before the entrance of the bassoon and the oboe. The voices of the two woods are mingled with those of the piano. The melody of a "melancholy grace" is more particularly entrusted to the oboe.

With a very lively rhythm, this third and final movement mixes the lightness of the bassoon and the "ironic voice" of the oboe.