Discs of this type featuring star soloists, more often than not
a tenor, are not in short supply. This one, recorded a decade
ago as a vehicle for Roberto Alagna and first issued by EMI, scores
over many alternatives because of two factors: the programming
and the quality of execution.
Any programme focusing
on French chants sacrés of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries is almost bound to include Gounod’s often performed
Ave Maria, written after Bach’s famous prelude in the
‘Well-tempered clavier’. To place it at the beginning – as here
– is apt and allows the musical content to diversify from that
point. Gounod’s representation is extended with three further
contributions that pay testament to the importance not only
of his compositional voice but also his deeply felt beliefs,
which he sought to convey through his music. Other composers
whose names one would expect to appear within a disc of this
type are represented (Berlioz, Franck and Fauré) along with
others whose music merits more than the occasional airing it
gets – outside France at least: Caplet, Boulanger and Jean-Baptiste
Fauré, who during his lifetime was better known as a star baritone.
There is much to
merit the performances as well. The Toulouse orchestra under
the equally experienced and alert baton of Michel Plasson offer
assured accompaniments to each item. The orchestra is resonantly
recorded to ensure depth of tone but not an unduly pronounced
role in proceedings. Choral parts, where employed, tend on the
whole to be slightly recessed in the church acoustic that is
faithfully conveyed in the recording too, but this does not
impede enjoyment of the carefully homogenised sound that the
choirs produce. Texts are included, but are only on occasion
needed to follow what is being sung.
Alagna’s contribution
then is the only thing left to comment on, and I need not detain
you long if you know other discs he recorded at around the same
time in his career. Given that the programme contains two versions
of the Sanctus and three of Panis Angelicus some variety of
expression is needed if the texts are not to lose part of the
individuality they gain through different composers’ settings.
True, in forte he has a tendency to push the tone a little
too much perhaps, but at least he varies the effect to show
awareness of line and allow for supple phrasing of the texts
he sings. A pity perhaps that he did not assume more Berlioz
around this time, since he displays many necessary attributes
in abundance: vocal strength and sureness of line and an awareness
of French style, even though the text is in Latin. These qualities
mark out much of what he brings to the items by Gounod and Franck
on this recording too. However it would be a mistake to think
of Alagna as possessing only a forthright urgency; then (more
so than now) he was able to shade down to the most winning of
pianissimi that bring an Italian tenor sound to mind as much
as a French one. The delicacy found in Lili Boulanger’s moving
chamber-scaled Pie Jesu shows this quality at its finest.
This is a welcome
and most warmly recommendable reissue.
Evan Dickerson
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