"Anything that concerns Paris," Francis Poulenc once wrote, "I approach with tears in my eyes and my head full of music." The city certainly has that effect on people. But it could also be said that this was the way Poulenc approached everything -- with keen sensitivity to his surroundings, a deep sense of awe and beauty, and, very often, complete irreverence. He was, a contemporary quipped, "part monk, part guttersnipe." In this respect Poulenc well represents the best tendencies of both Les Six and that entire generation of French and American composers who were turning away from traditional musical models towards an aesthetic that is often sublime -- and indeed quite sacred -- but is just as often filled with the banal, the sadness and the joy of everyday life.