I’ve never reviewed a disc by an older living artist. At the time
of writing Hugues Cuénod is still alive. This amazing centenarian,
born in 1902, must also be one of the oldest to have entered into
a civil union, which he did last year with his partner in Switzerland
where he lives in the Château de Lully.
How pleasant therefore
to welcome back to the discographic fold the fruits of these two
Lyrichord discs made in 1952. Times come and times go and each
generation reinvents in its own image the music of the past -
and with dogmatism or with flexibility celebrates it. I prefer
pragmatism myself, and a wide variety of approaches, none mutually
exclusive. This applies to recordings from the past as much as
today – and few more so than by Cuénod whose high tenor is so
distinctive a feature of this repertoire; one thinks in particular
of his splendid contribution to the pre-War François Couperin
set of the Troisième Leçon de Ténèbres pour le Mecredy
Saint with Jane Evrard directing in Paris in 1936 (Cascavelle
VEL 3080 – a two disc set coupled with Mozart, Stravinsky and
Delannoy; see review).
Here we have Elizabethan
Song and he casts his distinctive timbre and fine pronunciation
on this repertoire as well, abetted by the superior harpsichord
playing of Claude Jean Chiasson, who sounds rather Landowska
inspired in his playing, notably in the solo outings such as
John Bull’s Galiardo. But for Cuénod everything is light
and bright in When Laura Smiles and in the pithier and
prettier songs generally, the majority. We can perhaps best
appreciate the salient qualities of Cuénod’s voice in Pilkington’s
Underneath a Cypress Tree – its characteristic warmth
of utterance, fast vibrato, command of language and diction,
ease of phrasing, rather limited compass. The very particular
and personal nature of his vibrato could sometimes lead to a
rather tremulous delivery, which had its charm as well, though
not everyone appreciated it; try Drink To Me Only With Thine
Eyes. One of the most comprehensively successful performances
is of Dowland’s Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part which is
a beautiful song well suited to the plaintive and plastic limpidity
of Cuénod’s voice.
The ‘Rameau’ excerpts
are with some equally fine colleagues - Robert Brink (violin),
Alfred Zighera (viola da gamba) and Daniel Pinkham (harpsichord
and director). We now know – but only fairly recently – that
Diane et Acté on is not by Rameau but by Joseph Bodin
de Boismortier; Lyrichord’s disc was pressed this year but the
latest research hasn’t been assimilated into the booklet notes.
These excerpts are rather hollowly recorded but I enjoyed them
in particular for the contributions of the string players.
Jonathan Woolf
Hugues Cuénod
(tenor) 
