Francis POULENC (1899–1963)
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant [27:51]
Miriam Margolyes (narrator), Simon Callaghan (piano)
rec. London, 16 August 2020 (narration); Wyastone, Monmouth, 9 August 2020 (music)
NIMBUS NI1571 [27:51]
This is the first CD I have heard that was recorded under Covid 19-related ‘lockdown’ conditions; and let me say at once that it is a triumph for all concerned. The two acoustics used seem to be perfectly well balanced and co-ordinated, and the performance itself as well integrated as if the two artists had been in the same room.
It is always a delight to hear Jean de Brunhoff’s story of the little elephant whose mother is cruelly shot, but who finds refuge in the home of a kind old lady before returning home to get married and become elephant king. And, once past some dodgy French pronunciation at the very outset, Miriam Margolyes is an ideal narrator. The story doesn’t give her much scope to express her unique comic gifts, but she is warm, sensitive, not too fast, and strikes just the right balance between restraint and over-acting – witness, for example, the subtly piping overtones she lends to Babar’s voice, or the precisely gauged hint of a superannuated quiver in those of the old lady and her elephant counterpart Cornelius. Above all, Margolyes never talks down to her audience, meaning that her performance can be enjoyed by children of all ages – and not just the very young ones for whom Poulenc first envisaged the music.
And what superbly judged music it is! Simple and improvisatory much of it may be, but it clearly meant a great deal to Poulenc. Nimbus’s notes quote his biographer Hervé Lacombe as pointing to various parallels between the story and the composer’s own life: “the premature death of his mother, nostalgia for his original environment, the child’s gratitude and success, naïve enjoyment and love of parties, a taste for funny situations, the ideal life of the idealised couple, and dreamy thoughts of the stars”. I am sure all those factors are relevant to the score’s success, but so is the nature of the musical assignment itself: Poulenc plainly throve on the opportunity to write a series of short – sometimes very short – character pieces that gave full rein to his fecund, mercurial imagination without obliging him to expose his weaker suit of developing thematic material over longer spans. At times it is quite astonishing how much vivid atmosphere and memorable melody he can pack into a short space – be it in slow music (the mother elephant’s tender lullaby or the gently star-spangled coda) or faster episodes (Babar escaping from the huntsman, driving his car (!), or going shopping with his friends).
Simon Callaghan is alert to all of these changing moods, and – like Margolyes – sounds fully inside his role. He eschews any unduly subjective emphasis or special pleading, but rather – as all good Poulenc interpreters do – palpably trusts the master’s own unique instincts, however bizarre these might sometimes be. Callaghan’s piano is warmly and clearly recorded. I can’t deny that on occasion I missed some deft touch of instrumentation found in the orchestral version of Babar sanctioned by Poulenc but carried out by that fine craftsman Jean Françaix; but the original piano version works perfectly well on its own terms, and is far more than a lockdown-imposed second best.
Even if one limits it to English-language versions with piano, this new Babar enters a competitive field, including versions narrated by John Amis (review), Ken Beachler (review), Richard Briers (review) and Norman Shetler (review). Of these, though, only Briers is really in Margolyes’s class as a storyteller, and her performance with Callaghan can more than hold its own with any. A slightly greater, if prosaic concern is the disc’s price: I have seen it offered for £7.75 and £9.73, for some 27 minutes’ worth of music. You just wish that it had been possible to couple this excellent Babar with some other triumph over the vicissitudes of Covid, such as an audio version of the wonderful performance of Poulenc’s La Voix humaine (with Claire Booth and Christopher Glynn) that is currently being streamed by WNO. Such a wish, though, no doubt belongs to the realm of Desert Island Discs rather than to that of modern commercial reality; and of course, especially at the current time, we must be grateful for what we are given, rather than lamenting what we are not. Certainly, and by any standards, this CD is both richly enjoyable and – in its way – a life-enhancing tribute to the human spirit.
Nigel Harris
Previous review: Dominy Clements
