Poulenc: Piano Music, Vol. 3

Francis Poulenc was born on 7th January 1899 in Paris into a well-to-do family of pharmaceutical manufacturers. His childhood passion, as he once wrote, was playing the piano, encouraged by the present of a child's piano when he was two. His mother was his first teacher and by 1915 he had decided to study the instrument seriously, embarking on lessons with the eccentric virtuoso and family friend, Ricardo Vines. It was Viñes who, about a year later, introduced him to the remarkable Erik Satie, and it was through Viñes that he met a composer of his own age, Georges Auric, who became his lifelong friend. Francis Poulenc quickly became an excellent pianist and often performed, chiefly his own compositions, both as soloist and accompanist.