Ernest CHAUSSON (1833–1897)
Poème de l'amour
et de la mer, op. 19 [26:43]
Hector BERLIOZ (1803–1869)
Les Nuits d’été,
Op. 7 [28:41]
Henri DUPARC (1848–1933)
Le manoir de
Rosemonde
[2:32]
L’invitation au voyage [3:21]
Chanson
triste [2:53]
Soile Isokoski (soprano)
Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds
rec. 2014, Helsinki Music Centre, Finland.
English, French, Finnish; French texts with English translation
ONDINE ODE1261-2 [64:46]
Soile Isokoski continues to delight with her silvery lyric soprano. She is
now in her late fifties and her vibrato has loosened ever so slightly but
she still maintains a seamless legato and the purest of tones. Her latest
recital is a tempting compilation of works by three great masters of the
French mélodie, thematically united by their treatment of love, longing and
loss.
This is seductive, erotic music which moves from the more overtly
high-Romantic sensibility of Berlioz’s famous song-cycle, begun in 1834 and
orchestrated in 1856, to Chausson’s Tristanesque death-laden pessimism; his
distinctly depressive “Poème”, written between 1882 and 1892, anticipates
fin-de-siècle pessimism. It is suffused with the operation of pathetic
fallacy: Nature becomes a mirror to the suffering of the tormented lover’s
soul. Its voluptuous, heavily-perfumed yearning is the direct descendant of
Isolde’s “Liebestod” with a French delicacy grafted onto it.
These songs are often sung by a richer, more voluptuous soprano or even a
darker mezzo-soprano of the Janet Baker-Jessye Norman type. “Nuits d’été” is
the most often recorded of the works here and the competition is strong. It
is perhaps more suited to a lighter soprano than the works by Chausson and
Duparc, and singers such as Eleanor Steber and Kiri Te Kanawa have made a
success of recording it. The four slower, more dolorous songs sandwiched
between the upbeat opening and closing items benefit from a smokier timbre.
Just occasionally one feels that the voice could do with a bit more heft in
order to ride the densely orchestrated Wagnerian chromaticism. Isokoski
sustains such a long line and expands so gloriously on key phrases such as
“j’arrive du paradis” in “Le spectre de la rose” and “Reviens, reviens, ma
bien-aimée!” in “Absence”, that the vibrancy, intensity and tremulous beauty
of her soprano convince the listener of the suitability of her sound to this
music.
It is almost amusing that a Nordic orchestra such as the Helsinki
Philharmonic under John Storgårds' relatively restrained but
sensitive direction can provide such an authentic facsimile of Gallic
sensuousness. You have only to listen to the transparency of their playing
of the brief Interlude in the “Poème” to hear how completely they have
absorbed the correct style.
Ralph Moore
