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This coming weekend I am performing the Poulenc Sextet on a faculty recital at Arizona State, the recital of oboe colleague Martin Schuring. This is a great chamber work that I have not before had the opportunity to perform. Working on it I see one rather interesting marking.
Consider this musical example to be Exhibit A. It is from the opening section of the Finale movement; note the markings sans ralentir.
The tempo marking is Prestissimo, half note at 116. Basically for a lot of horn players this is right around their maximum single tongue speed at volume. A likely scenario is that on some very early rehearsal of the manuscript the horn player drug these passages, so Poulenc marked them sans ralentir. Which in this case really means “hey horn player, don’t drag this passage.” [There are a number of very similar markings, for the same reason, in the orchestral works of Strauss and Mahler. They don’t want the horns to drag.]
On YouTube one performance of this movement that caught my attention is this one from Venezuela in 2008. Hornist Rainer Ossot does not drag! Enjoy.
