![Elora Festival Singers - Mass In G Major](https://newreleasesnow.imgix.net/elora-festival-singers-mass-in-g-major.jpg?ar=1%3A1&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=crop&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&ixlib=php-2.1.1&q=25&w=20&s=903974fff6a4d5a3d6c01debb753756b)
Poulenc had not written for choral forces for over a decade when, in 1936, his friend and fellow-composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud was killed in harrowing circumstances. This, fused with the memory of his father’s death, caused a spiritual crisis in Poulenc’s life which led to a series of important compositions for chorus. The powerful Mass In G Major is a missa brevis with a daring use of tonality, though the playfulness of Poulenc’s ‘Les Six’ period is not absent. In Sept Chansons, to surrealist texts, and in the two sets of Motets - both very personal and penitential – Poulenc generates a huge range of emotion.