Mozart's
K 216 was coupled with Handel's Water Music also conducted by Gustav
Koslik
Mozart's
K 218 was coupled with 3 Mozart Overtures (conducted by Gustav Koslik)
On
Side 2 of Philips 6500 038: Poulet together with Szeryng in Concertone
für zwei Violinen (Mozart)
Mozart's
Early Violin Sonatas with Blandine Verlet on harpsichord recorded for
the Philips label.
Le Club Isambert
101 178
View
Maestro Poulet's biography (in French).
For
more violinists visit The World Violinist Links
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When
young violin player Gérard Poulet recorded for the Remington
label in Vienna he was about 14 years old.
If you want to know what the term 'child-prodigy' means, you simply
should listen to Mozart's G Major Concerto K216 played by young Gérard
Poulet.
His performance recorded with the Austrian Symphony Orchestra is lyrical,
has perfect timing and beautiful phrasing, and the young violinist has
an outstanding technique.
The mature interpretation
has no haste, but depth and calmness when demanded and lightness in
the outer movements.
This not only proves Gerard Poulet's musicianship but also the excellent
teachers he must have had all along. One of them is the father of the
talented youngster, Gaston Poulet, himself a noted violinist, conductor
and pedagogue.
The recording was made for Remington Records in 1952 in Vienna (at the
time when Michèle Auclair made her Kreisler Favorites recordings).
The same characterization goes for Mozart's D Major Concerto K 218,
also conducted by Gaston Poulet. Although Heifetz and Goldberg were
preferred by many, the critics were very positive about these performances.
Mozart's K216
can be found on R-199-131. Critic Warren DeMotte writes
in 
The
Long Playing Record Guide:
'The Poulets are a father and son team to be reckoned with. The youth
fiddles with more than a modicum of understanding; his father wields
a perceptive baton.'
And DeMotte characterizes the K218 performance on R-199-125
as follows:
'Young Gérard Poulet is astonishingly mature in his interpretation
and fiddling technique; father Gaston's part in their collaboration
is admirable.'
Music critic B.H. Haggin evaluates these recordings in his book
“The Listener’s Musical Companion” as follows:
“Concertos
for Violin. K 216 and 218 are played by thirteen-year old
Gerard Poulet with youthful warmth and purity and extraordinarily
sentient inflection that make these two of the most remarkable
and beautiful performances on records; and the playing of the
Austrian Symphony under his father Gaston Poulet also is outstanding."
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In the section Records in Review of High Fidelity Magazine,
September-October 1953, C.G. Burke writes:
“Most of us
agree that the child-musician is among the least endearing of
fauna, but a 14-year-old violinist is presented here in appealing
and presentable guise, without pretention in a direct and musicianly
recreation of an expertly guileless concerto by a 19-year-old
composer. The conducting of Poulet père must have
had much to do with the cool tastefulness of this record, which
challenges the preëminence of several renowned violinists
in the same music and has the most accurate reproduction of them
all."
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Other Violin Concertos
by Mozart were recorded by Eva Hitzker with Fritz Weidlich conducting
on R-149-37 (K219), and K271a was performed by
Helen
Airoff with the Austrian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kurt
Wöss on R-199-46.
The liner notes
on the R-199-131 release state the following information about father
and son:
Gaston Poulet
is one of the permanent conductors of the famous Colonne Orchestra
of Paris. He began his career as a violinist and made his debut
as conductor in Paris in 1926 where the "Poulet Concerts"
became an established event under his baton. He is best known
in France but has traveled throughout Europe conducting the
major orchestras of Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, England,
Holland, Italy and Spain.
Gérard
Poulet, the son of Gaston Poulet, is a child-prodigy, who has
already established a name for himself in Europe. Born in 1939,
by 1951 he had completed his studies at the Paris Conservatory
and won by unanimous vote First Prize. His debut in December
1951 with the Colonne Orchestra was an outstanding success and
he has since toured England in concert and been widely acclaimed
in that country.
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Gérard
Poulet was born on 12th of August 1938 (and not 1939 as the cover
states) in Bayonne in the south of France. At the early age of 5 he
showed his disposition and at the age of 11 he entered the Paris Conservatory
where he studied with André Asselin. His first appearance in
concert performing Mendelssohn and Lalo (with his father conducting
l'Orchestre des Concerts Colonne') gave him instant fame and resulted
in appearances in other cities in Europe and brought him to perform
in Vienna where the recordings for the Remington label were made.
At 18 he was awarded
the Premio Paganini at the contest in Genoa and there he played
on Paganini's violin. He studied further with Zino Francescati, Yehudi
Menuhin, Nathan Milstein and above all with Henryk Szeryng
who named him his spiritual son. And from then on he not only concertizes
in France's important cities and the music centers of most European
countries, but he travels all over the world from China and Japan to
the US and Canada, from Tunesia to Brazil and Argentine.
His repertory entails
works of Bartok, Beethoven, Fauré, Franck, Lekeu, Schubert, Stravinski
and Bach (complete Sonatas and Partitas).
Gérard
Poulet at the time when he made several recordings for the DEESSE
label: 24 Caprices (Paganini), Sonatas by Prokofiev and Bartok
(with pianist Maurice Blanchot), and Miniatures of Wieniawsky,
Dvorak, Bartok, Kreisler, Boutry, Bloch, Debussy, Brahms, Ravel,
Blanchot, etc.
(Photo:
Maurice Apelbaum)
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The
cover of his outstanding recording of The Twenty-Four Caprices
- Paganini on DEESSE DDLX 168.
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With harpsichordist
Blandine Verlet he recorded the early Mozart Sonatas for Philips
(6747 200), later added to the Sonatas played by Henryk Szeryng
and Ingrid Haebler in the issue Mozart Edition (6747 381).
On Philips 9500
158 from 1976 he plays Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins together
with Henryk Szeryng, Maurice Hanson and Claire Bernard, Henryk Szeryng
conducting the English Chamber Orchestra.
On Déesse
DDLX 58 he plays solo pieces by Schubert, Ravel, Brahms, Paganini,
Dvorak, Wieniawski and Bloch, with Maurice Blanchot at the piano.
On EMI ISA
801-2LP can be found: Beethoven: Sonata Op.24; Mozart: Sonata K.526;
Debussy: Sonata; Prokofiev: Sonata 2; Ravel: Tzigane performed with
Claude-Erik Nandrup at the piano
In 1978 he performed
Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Triple Concerto (with Claude-Erik
Nandrup, piano, and Jean-Marie Gamard, cello) for the benefit
of the "Club Isambert" which strives for better understanding
of the ear, nose and throat disorders. It was a live performance with
the Orchestra of the "Garde Républicaine" conducted
by Roger Boutry. These performances were issued on record (ref.:
101 178). Le Club Isambert was named after François-André
Isambert (November 30, 1792—April 13, 1857) who was a French lawyer
who was a beacon in the struggle for human rights.
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Gérard
Poulet (image courtesy Municipality of Genoa - Paganini Competition
Secretariat)
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Gérard Poulet
is currently professor at the 'Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique
de Paris', gives master classes and often
is a jury member at mayor contests.
Rudolf A. Bruil,
summer 2002
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