Described as both a “monk” and a “delinquent” by the critic, Claude Rostand, Francis Poulenc composed music that oscillates between extremes. In 1947, his Sinfonietta revives the dashing energy of the Roaring Twenties. Tingling with neo-classical mischief, the work harks back to the ebullience of Haydn symphonies. But the atmosphere changes dramatically in the second half of the programme. Having suffered a nervous breakdown in the wake of a romantic break-up in 1958, a distraught Poulenc set to music Cocteau’s play, The Human Voice, in which a woman talks over the phone to a lover who has left her. Conducted by Alexandre Bloch, the monumental singer and tragedian, Véronique Gens, keeps us teetering on the edge of an emotional abyss.