This set and the music
it presents with such taste and accomplishment
is yet another pearl of the lyric repertoire.
To date it continues to waste its sweetness
on the desert air but with this set
we can have some hope that things will
change. The music demands your attention
if you have any feeling for the settings
of Duparc, Canteloube, Chausson, Ravel
and Debussy.
A few words about the
coverage. Apart from some cabaret songs
written under a pseudonym these are
the complete extant songs of Paul Paray.
A handful of other songs are known to
have existed but their scores have since
disappeared. The two discs largely comprise
songs for soprano with orchestra on
CD1 and with piano on CD2. There are
three choral-orchestral songs at the
end of CD1 and a short piece for solo
violin and orchestra. The songs are
predominantly secular, drawing on the
great French poets favoured by composers
during the period 1890-1920. There are
two religious songs at the end of CD2.
Two songs are sung by the baritone Eric
Everett. One of the songs with piano
on side 2 is a vocalise. The religious
songs are for voice and organ with in
one case an additional solo cello.
CD1 launches with the
ecstatic, fluttering, quick-pulsed serenade
Papillon which is most beautifully
lofted by Perrone and Lapeyre. Lapeyre
is the most adroit choice for this repertoire.
Where has she been hidden? I wonder
that Hyperion did not use her - and
for that matter Laurent Naouri - in
their various French albums. She is
a singer of superior ability, taste
and intelligence. Then come the three
Gaultier Mélodies. There’s the
sighing Infidélité
where the finely spun last word
‘vous’ tapers into niente without
a single beat or tremor in Lapeyre’s
voice. Glorious. Listen also to the
aestival warmth and lilt of the orchestral
skein at the end of La dernière
feuille. After the playfulness of
Après l’orage come the
throbbing shadows and irresistible intensity
of Adieux - an imposingly emotional
scena. For contrast we then get the
fly-away, skittery, waltz-tinged Après
le bal. Désir de mort
is dedicated to a close friend of
the Parays, Marcelle Maurel. Its sway
and movement recalls, as Fr. Perrone
reminds us in the excellent notes, of
Duparc’s Extase. This is another
major discovery: languorous and sensuous
music most beautifully prepared and
sung. The same applies to the equally
subtle song Il est d'étranges
soirs which rises amid the din of
bells to an operatic-dramatic climax
of considerable power. Not for the first
time it becomes apparent that had Paray
felt so inclined he could have contributed
to the treasures of French opera. In
the same way that Champ de Bataille
on CD2 is dedicated to Charles Murano
who sang in Paray’s Jeanne d’Arc
so Il est d'étranges soirs
is dedicated to Jane Goupil who would
sing the title role in the same piece.
Villanelle quickens
the pace and majors on smiling playfulness.
Yes, this is the same text used by Berlioz
in his cycle Nuits d’Été.
Originally written in Paris in 1910,
La Promesse was orchestrated
in 1921. It recalls, at some points,
Butterworth’s Love Blows as the Wind
Blows but with a more hooded and
ambiguously melancholic air that would
have instantly appealed to Bernard Herrmann.
Le Chevrier is a vivid little
watercolour in which the skip of the
goats is enchantingly heard in the hiccups
of strings and woodwind.
Then come Three Poems
for choir and orchestra. The definition
and clarity of the words here leaves
something to be desired but otherwise
these three songs are magically done.
The second, L'aurore vermeille,
with its wakeful piping, recalls the
warmth of the Canteloube Auvergne
songs.
The second CD is of
mélodies dating from earlier
than the orchestral examples on CD1.
Once again it has the gloriously steady
and sensitive Ruth Lapeyre as singer
and Fr Eduard Perrone as the anchor.
The acoustic is a shade lively for piano
and singer; listen to the echo at the
end of Emprise and on CD1 of
Serment however the sound is
unclouded and easily springs to dramatic
life when the setting requires. Nuit
d'Italie is a succulent song with
lissom melodic invention clustered around
the carillon piano figure. The same
poem by Paul Bourget was also set by
Chausson in his Sérénade
Italienne. Bells too play their
part in the plangent and measured piano
part for Sépulture which
reminded me of the more lugubrious romances
of Rachmaninov. Champs de bataille
does away with carillons and instead
adopts a bruising brutal four-square
ostinato that fades only slowly into
peace. I wondered about whether the
soprano voice is right for this poem
given its topography and warlike subject
matter; it needs more vocal punch than
it gets. The song was written in 1912;
two years later the composer would experience
war firsthand. Chanson napolitaine
has the look and feel of a gently
sentimental popular song with a jog-trot
ostinato. Embarquement pour l'idéal
takes us straight into Chausson and
Duparc territory: that hooded-eyes dreaminess
with a sweetly chiming Baxian piano
accompaniment. The poem is by Catulle
Mendès and is taken up with the
poet’s rejection of reality and absorption
in sublime illusion. This impressionistic
music is fully the match for the ethereal
subject. Viole recalls the opéra
lyrique smiles of Papillon on
CD1. For Mortes les fleurs Paray
taps into the ecstatic mood of Embarquement
pour l'idéal. Paroles
à la lune was his first song,
written at age 16. This has an easy,
almost casual, sing-song quality and
a hint of Spanish terraces. Had he written
this ten years later it would have been
much more sensuous. Dans les bois
dates from only two years later. It
sets Gérard de Nerval’s poem
about the fleeting life-story of a bird
amid a piano accompaniment that has
Debussian echoes. Then comes a piece
from much later in Paray’s career and
long after his return from war and prison.
This Vocalise-Étude from
1924 has grace and ecstatic sweetness
and would match well with the vocalise
works by Medtner and Rachmaninov. These
are all well sung by Ruth Lapeyre.
We then hear from the
baritone Eric Everett in the easy-going
Chaque chose a sa petit place
and the earnest In manus tuas.
Mr Everett’s voice is no match for Ms
Lapeyre’s. He is desperately unsteady
in breath control and the strain tells
against him from time to time. In the
latter there is one of those typical
Paray jog-trot serenade accompaniments;
extremely attractive. In Chaque chose
a sa petit place Everett is accompanied
by piano and in In manus tuas
by organ The organ returns but this
time with Nadine Deleury’s cello and
Mme Lapeyre in Panis Angelicus
(1904).
The Nocturne for
violin and orchestra is one of three
pieces dedicated to M. P. Roussel and
originally for violin and piano. The
other two are Sérénade
and Humoresque, dating
from 1908 and 1910. The orchestration
is by Henri Mouton. It is a downy-light
sweetly sentimental song that steers
securely away from the caramel reefs.
The sighing Havanaise-sweet violin
melody is underpinned by another of
Paray’s irresistible ostinati. Fr. Perrone
justifies its place here as a song without
words and does so quite credibly. After
all on CD2 there is a Vocalise-Étude
where the voice is used as a violin.
Fr Perrone, whose dedication
and commitment continues to bear up
Paray’s music and reputation, has prepared
the detailed booklet. For each song
we are presented with the original text
and a translation into English with
background notes for each song as well
as a valuable scene-setting introduction.
This luxurious set
is a treasury of French song and although
it has its few troughs it is overwhelmingly
a thing of ecstatic peaks. I hope that
it will not be the last time we will
hear from Ruth Lapeyre. We know that
there is more to come from Paray and
Grotto. The next disc will be of Paray’s
two symphonies. The sooner the better.
Rob Barnett
Ruth Lapeyre (soprano) 
for
details
