Planck Impromptu No.1-6 First Performances

After World War I,a significant change for the concepts of culture and art occurred in France,which eventually causes a cultural revolution. Neo-classical was one of a kind of musical genres as the biggest impact, not only affects many important composer's creations in the 20thcentury, its far-reaching influence has spread to this day.Francis Poulenc(1899-1963)experienced such a transformation and became one of the most important.French composers and pianists in the 20th century.His works are elegant and charming,fresh and simple,full of novelty.Poulenc was prolific,producing a total number of 34 opuses for piano. In particular,he finished most of his outstanding works in the 1930S. The 15 Improvisations were among poulenc's favourite piano works.It had most representative.Improvisations is characterized by two main elements generally found in poulenc's work,referred to as Neo-classicism and French music,from which the characteristics of his piano music can be realized comprehensively.The primary purpose of this thesis is to thoroughly discuss poulenc's famous piano pieces Improvisations.The thesis is organized as follows, Firstly,the development of Neo-classicism style and its characteristics in the early 20th century are introduced particularly with a historical perspective.In chapter 2,poulenc's life and his composition style are presented,followed by an emphasis on the unique characteristics of his piano music.Chaper 3 describes the background when poulenc composed Improvisations(No.1-6),simple analyse with a discussion of the skills required Music Analysis of Poulenc's Improvisations for the interpretation.There are three appendices at the end of this paper. Appendix A is expression of Improvisation NO.1-6.Appendix B contains chronology of Poulenc's major events.Appendix C is a list of poulenc piano works.