With an initial reputation for light-hearted music of wit and elegance, Poulenc developed a maturer idiom that led to his tragic opera the Dialogues des carmélites and liturgical works expressing his rediscovered religious convictions. Nevertheless it is in smaller scale works, his songs and chamber music, and, above all, in his piano pieces that he is most characteristically represented. The present series offers the complete piano music, here including Improvisations dedicated to various contemporaries, the more demanding Napoli and the Novelettes that end with a tribute to the Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla.