Not so long ago
I reviewed a live Winterreise from
Wigmore Hall with Alice Coote and Julius Drake – and very positive I was. It
was recorded in early 2012, and a little more than half a year later this
studio production was set down, now with Graham Johnson at the piano. The
programme is indeed an exquisite hour – more than that in fact, almost five
quarters of an hour of delicate French songs from the 19
th and
20
th centuries. It opens and ends with songs by possibly the
greatest composer of French melodies during the last century.
Les
chemins de l’amour, written in 1940 for Yvonne Printemps, is a
delicious starter: a lovely melodious languorous waltz. Satie in cabaret
mood isn’t far away.
Then follows a string of pearls of exquisite songs, presented in a
well-judged order to create unity as well as contrast – not an easy task to
fulfil. Picking only the two dozen most popular songs is no guarantee of
success, but here they have found suitable examples. They have arranged them
in a sequence that lets each stand out as the masterpiece it is without
being killed by or killing its neighbours. The two Hahn songs are well
matched against Poulenc and then comes Fauré, always sensitive to the poetic
qualities of the texts. Charles Gounod is remembered for his operas, of
which
Faust and, to a lesser degree,
Roméo et Juliette
have been favourites – and still are. Not every music-lover knows that
Gounod also wrote songs: more than one hundred. The Victor Hugo setting
Sérénade is possibly his best known. The name Emmanuel Chabrier
probably evokes memories of colourful orchestral works like
España
and
Joyeuse marche but he wrote a number of songs, of which two are
included here. Both are highly attractive. Ernest Chausson, who died in a
bicycle accident not yet 45, left a rather small legacy and today is best
known for his
Poème for violin and orchestra and his song cycle
Poème de l'amour et de la mer. Le temps de lilas (1886) is
an atmospheric song, pointing forward to impressionism; Debussy was a great
admirer of Chausson.
Berlioz composed his well-known song-cycle originally for voice and piano
but later orchestrated it, and that is almost exclusively the only version
we hear today. Alice Coote and Graham Johnson show with emphasis that the
original also is well worth a listen. Little is heard today of Alfred
Bachelet’s music. The sole survivor is the song
Chére nuit written
in 1897 for Nellie Melba. It is a marvellous song, more operatic showpiece,
though, than a true mélodie. Saint-Saëns composed in all genres and with the
same ease and tastefulness.
Aimons-nous is a beautiful love-song,
filled with honest sentiment.
Soirée en mer, another Hugo setting,
is enchanting; Saint-Saëns at his very best. I mentioned Erik Satie at the
beginning of the review. Now, here he is with his best known song,
ravishingly sung:
Je te veux. Charles Koechlin’s opus list
encompasses over two hundred works and among them are several groups of
songs.
Novembre (from
Quatre melodies, Op 22) is fairly
early, written around the previous turn of the century. It is a gloomy song,
in spite of the text saying: ‘the charming month’, ‘the blessed month’. Four
short songs by Poulenc round off this delightful traversal of French song
repertoire, the last of them being
Voyage, a setting of
Apollinaire:
Farewell love cloud that flies and has not shed fertile rain
Take again the journey of Dante
Telegraph
Bird who lets its wings fall everywhere
Where is this train going that dies away in the distance
In the vales and the lonely fresh woods of the
Tender summer so pale?
The gentle night moonlit and full of stars
It is your face that I no longer see
(English version by Winifred Radford)
Wonderful songs, wonderful singing, wonderful piano playing. Excellent
recording and a deeply satisfying essay on the songs by Susan Youens. Song
discs don’t come much better.
Göran Forsling
Previous review:
John Quinn
Track listing
Francis POULENC (1899 – 1963)
1.
Les chemins de l’amour (from Léocadia, FP106) [3:48]
Reynaldo HAHN (1874 – 1947]
2.
L’heure exquise (from Chansons grises) [2:26]
3.
Les étoiles (from Douze Rondels) [2:50]
Gabriel FAURÉ (1845 – 1924)
4.
Le secret, Op. 23 No. 3 [2:33]
Charles GOUNOD (1818 – 1893)
5.
Sérénade [4:26]
6.
Au printemps [1:57]
Emmanuel CHABRIER (1841 – 1894)
7.
Toutes les fleurs [4:45]
Ernest CHAUSSON (1855 – 1899)
8.
Le temps des lilas [4:11]
Gabriel FAURÉ
9.
Fleur jetée Op. 39 No. 2 [1:39]
Hector BERLIOZ (1803 – 1869)
10.
Le spectre de la rose (from Les nuits d’été Op. 7) [6:11]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835 – 1921)
11.
Aimons-nous [4:11]
Emmanuel CHABRIER
12.
L’île heureuse [2:50]
Alfred BACHELET (1864 – 1944)
13.
Chère nuit [4:56]
Camille SAINT-SAËNS
14.
Soirée en mer [4:34]
Claude DEBUSSY (1862 – 1918)
15.
La grotte (from Trois chansons de France, L115) [2:25]
Reynaldo HAHN
16.
Fumée (from Les feuilles blessées) [2:41]
Erik SATIE (1866 – 1925)
17.
Je te veux [3:54]
Reynaldo HAHN
18.
La chère blessure [3:20]
Charles KOECHLIN (1867 – 1950)
19.
Novembre (from Quatre mélodies Op. 22) [3:17]
Francis POULENC
20.
Voyage à Paris (from Banalités, FP107) [0:58]
21.
Hôtel (from Banalités, FP107) [1:45]
22.
La Grenouillère FP96 [1:50]
23.
Voyage (from Calligrammes, FP140) [3:01]
