Born in Paris in 1899 from a wealthy industrial family, Francis Poulenc rebelliously became a pianist and later a composer. He took up piano lessons as a young child but did not get a formal academic musical education until later in his life. 

He started to compose at age 18, after meeting with several famous poets and musicians of the era like Aragon, Appollinaire or Éluard and of course fellow composer Maurice Ravel. He was enrolled as a conscript in the army after 1918 and composed several pieces during that time. His fame, particularly in Britain, grew in the post-war era, but as his work was met with remarkable success, he became all too aware of his lack of academic training and took composition lessons for a while. His personal life was not a happy one, as he struggled with his sexuality and had proposed to a female friend who refused him.  

In the 30s, after a series of emotional misfortunes, his music became more serious and adapted a lot of surrealistic poems by Paul Éluard. He briefly served in WWII and spent the latter months of the war in the south of France with friends and family. 

In the 50s, La Scala commissioned Poulenc to write an opera and worked on it until his death. He suffered a fatal heart attack in 1963 and died at home in Paris. His most well-known oeuvres are the piano suite Trois mouvements perpétuels (1919), the ballet Les biches (1923), the Concert champêtre (1928) for harpsichord and orchestra, the Organ Concerto (1938), the opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1957), and the Gloria (1959).  

Photo credit: Francis Poulenc