Poulenc: Half Monk - Half Rascal (CD Review - Choir and Organ Magazine, 2012)

The old rouge would have kissed them all, the men twice over. Poulenc may have created am impression of easygoing hedonism, and he certainly took an unusual angel on sacred music (monks playing football, indeed!) but his music demands precision and care even at its most rapturous, and there is plenty of rapture as well as wit in this intelligent selected programme. Layton gets a lovely, excact sound out of DNVE, heightened by a superb recording. Predictably, the religious songs are sensual, and the secular ones seem to reach for trancendence. That`s Poulenc, who was all genius.

Reviewed by Brian Morton 
Choir and Organ Magazine