Here are five unknown short works by mid-twentieth-century composers, which can be used to enhance a wide variety of concert programs, from an overture to two successful encore pieces.

Enescu : Concert Overture in A Major

On themes of popular Romanian character, Opus 32

3 / 3 / 3 / 3 — 4 / 4 / 3 / 1 — timb. - perc. - cel. - pno - hpe - glock — cordes

9 min

1948

This relatively short concert overture by Georges Enescu begins with a dance-like theme and strings together various musical themes in a partly associative progression. The musical progression becomes more and more dramatic and ends in a somewhat gloomy finale with a strong brass section and a drum roll. In any case, it is a stimulating and awakening overture for the main program items that follow, also with a larger orchestra.

Fernande Decruck

Five Christian Pieces

For voice and orchestra: 4 / 3 / 4 / 4 — 4 / 3 / 3 / 1 — timb. - 6 perc. - 2 hpe — cordes

For voice and chambre orchestra: 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 — 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 — pno — cordes

14 min

1946

Fernande Decruck is actually better known for her works for saxophone. The French composer has moved back and forth between the USA and France several times in her life and her works are published by different publishers. The Cinq poèmes chrétiens are arrangements of poems by Paul Claudel entitled “ Jésus tombe pour la seconde fois ‘, ’ Le Crucifix ‘, ’ La Couronne effeuillée ‘, ’ Epiphanie ‘, ’ Cantique ”, which are very delicately and restrainedly orchestrated and have an unagitated, very inner mood. The voice is immediately in the foreground at all times. Durand has published two versions of this enchanting gem, one for larger forces and one for small chamber orchestra.

Jean Wiener

Piano Concerto No. 1 “franco-américain”

For piano and string orchestra

15 min

Jean Wiener is actually better known as a composer of film music, but this short piano concerto with a small ensemble gives an interesting insight into his musical way of thinking. A colorful mix of different styles, always ironic and never with the certainty of being able to predict the musical course. Moreover, this mélange of very different “American” style quotations does not make too many technical demands on the orchestra and the soloist, apart from the rapid and refreshing changes of mood.

Claude Delvincourt : Bal vénitien

2 / 2 / 2 / 0 — 2 / 2 / 1 / 1 — timb. - 3 perc. - cél. - hpe — strings (divided)

1927

22 min

This dance sequence opens mysteriously with a background of very high strings and scattered melodic fragments, which, with its many rapid changes of mood and shimmering and vibrating themes, is very suitable as a finale at the end of a concert. The dance sequence of this Venetian ball is Forlane - Passamezzo - Burlesca - Morenci - Tarantellara.

Claude Delvincourt is an unfortunately somewhat forgotten composer, a pupil of Henri Büsser and Charles-Marie Widor, who was involved in the resistance organization Front National des Musiciens during the Second World War and managed to protect many of his pupils under the German occupation.

Francis Poulenc: Matelote provençale

For orchestra

2 min

2 / 2 / 2 / 2 — 2 / 2 / 0 / 0 — timb. - perc. — cordes

Another perfect encore: Poulenc's contribution to the group composition “La Guirlande de Campra”, a suite of variations on the theme of an opera by André Campra. The two-minute work begins with a simple melody that is constantly repeated and charged with verve.  Poulenc spices up his musical-culinary contribution (the title is a regional soup dish) in his usual style.