Selection Le Monde

Placed under a Janusian banner, "monk and thug", which has flourished since its use by Claude Rostand in the 1950s, this program does not invite us to consider the duality of expression in the production of one and the same musician. , but in the comparison of works borrowed from the catalog of two composers. Which is not the same thing at all. Especially since Francis Poulenc is only represented by pages, for a cappella choir, of monastic rigor whose multiple nuances Les Métaboles ideally reproduces, under the meticulous and sensitive direction of Léo Warynski. After this almost sacred Poulenc, a misguided Cavanna? Yes and no. Mass on an Ordinary Day (1994) can, of course, be seen as provocative to the extent that it slips, among other things, into ordinary Latin (Gloria) a few sentences from a drug addict in search of shelter. However, magnificently performed here, this thunderous work exalts all registers, from pure emotion to caricature emphasis, with an aesthetic independence likely to earn Bernard Cavanna the status of "composer without a label", once claimed by Francis Poulenc.