Benjamin BRITTEN (1913-1976)
Quatre Chansons françaises [12:05]
Les Illuminations, Op.18 [21:56]
Joseph CANTELOUBE (1879-1957)
Chants d'Auvergne - selection [39:56]
Mari Eriksmoen (soprano)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner
rec. 2021, Greighallen, Bergen, Norway
Reviewed in surround sound.
CHANDOS CHSA5289 SACD [74:15]
Norwegian soprano Mari Eriksmoen is already a noted performer of the role of Debussy’s Mélisande, so Britten’s Quatre Chansons françaises, which have some Debussyan moments, make a fine opening to this disc. These songs are not especially characteristic of the composer, but he was only fourteen when he wrote them, and were premiered only in 1980, four years after his death. The boy Britten greatly admired Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune which, like the Mallarmé poem to which it is a prelude, aims to suggest more than it states. Eriksmoen manages this mood perfectly, her pure soprano eschewing full operatic strength in this music of half-lights. The short poems of Hugo and Verlaine are given astonishingly assured settings by Britten, not just for voice but also for the orchestra, an ensemble he had barely heard. But Eriksmoen makes this watershed work in Britten’s early career sound like a mature work, as she invests so much varied vocal quality in her interpretation. The third song, Victor Hugo’s L’Enfance, concerns a child and his dying mother, a dramatic scene that might have appealed to the later Britten. Eriksmoen is very touching here, as is the solo flute in the familiar French children’s song ‘Biquette’, which portrays the child’s oblivious singing at his mother’s deathbed.
By the time of Les Illuminations a decade on, Britten had found his own distinctive vocal style, and these French texts present a different challenge. Britten wrote to offer specific tips to Sophie Wyss, the soprano for whom it was written, on individual songs in the cycle. These are quoted in the excellent booklet notes by Mervyn Cooke, the Britten scholar. ‘Villes’ Britten suggested was a “good impression of chaotic modern city life”, and to be “sung in a mechanical and relentless fashion” and “somewhat sarcastically” while ‘Parade’ should be made to sound “creepy, evil, dirty (apologies)”. In both cases there is some degree of observance of these suggestions simply because they are there in the notes, and suggested by the text, to both of which Eriksmoen is properly attentive. She has just enough spinto power for the opening Fanfare and climactic moments, but the voice is essentially that of a Mozart soprano, pure and comfortable above the stave, with a very attractive basic timbre. The final ‘Départ’, which the composer suggested should “bring tears even to the programme sellers at the back of the hall”, is a lovely envoi to a very good performance.
Canteloube’s ‘Songs of the Auvergne’ take up more than half of the disc’s running time in a generous selection with many of the best known and most attractive of them. Many sopranos have recorded these, and there is another very new one from Carolyn Sampson on a BIS SACD which I have not heard, but which has been praised in the press (review). Eriksmoen brings a certain insouciant cheekiness of vocal manner to the amorous antics of these shepherdesses and swains, as in the opening ‘Pastourelle’, and the teasing ‘Chut, chut’. In what one might call the grander lyrical outpourings, such as the ‘La delaīssádo’ (“The abandoned girl”) and the famous ‘Baīlèro’, Eriksmoen deploys just the right amount of intensity for such gorgeously scored and harmonised music, more art song than folk song surely. The Bergen musicians, the winds especially, relish these heady scents from the South.
But this is a collection of songs where it easy to lose friends and give offence, so wedded are collectors to a particular singer. There are superb versions from Kiri te Kanawa, Federica von Stade, Victoria de Los Angeles, Dawn Upshaw, and Véronique Gens – the last a French singer, and one from the Auvergne. Each has many immovable adherents, and it is easy to hear why. Suffice to say my own favourite, from the 1960’s remains Netania Davrath. Her lightness of voice and of vibrato is closer to a folk idiom than an operatic style, so suits the material perfectly and made her version Vanguard's biggest selling title ever. I will say no more than that Mari Eriksmoen is worthy to be mentioned among such exalted company.
Eriksmoen contributes a personal note to the booklet which includes some observations on singing in French, and indeed in Occitan for the Auvergne folksongs. Her diction and pronunciation seem to this mainly monoglot Englishman to be very good indeed. The booklet is in English and French and contains texts and translations for every one of the twenty-eight items on this disc.
Chandos has done well over the years by the two Britten works, which were recorded for the label back in 1988 by Felicity Lott, and then Edward Gardner himself conducted them for Chandos in 2010 with Susan Gritton. That is still very good, and has Finzi and Delius pieces in addition, but the Norwegian soprano finds still more in the Englishman’s French settings. This fine SACD has atmospheric surround sound, the voice realistically balanced with the orchestra.
Roy Westbrook
Canteloube selection
Pastourelle (Deuxiéme Série, No. 1) [3:42]
Lo fiolairé (Troisiéme Série, No. 1)[2:30]
La pastrouletta é lou chibalié (Deuxième Série, No. 3) [1:49]
Chut, chut (Quatriéme Série, No. 4) [2:00]
La delaīssádo (Deuxiéme Série, No. 4) [4:24]
Oī ayaī (Quatriéme Série, No. 2) [2:48]
Baīlèro (Première Série, No. 2) [5:59]
Lou coucut (Quatrième Série, No. 6) [1:43]
Pastorale (Quatriéme Série, No. 5) [3:42]
Lá-haut, sur le rocher (Cinquiéme Série, No. 3) [3:24]
Postouro, sé tu m'aymo (Cinquiéme Série, No. 5) [1:26]L'aīo dé rotso (Premiére Série, No. 3a) [1:10]
Ound' onorén gorda? (Premiére Série, No. 3b) [2:50]
Obal din lou Limouzi (Premiére Série, No. 3c) [2:32]
