Performer: Veronique Gens, I Giardini
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Alpha
Release: 2020
Size: 1.01 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Lekeu: Nocturne
02. Fauré: La Lune blanche luit dans les bois (No. 3 from La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61)
03. Berlioz: L’Île inconnue (from Les Nuits d’été)
04. Tombelle: Orientale
05. Massenet: Nuit d’Espagne
06. Saint-Saëns: Désir de l’Orient
07. Chausson: Chanson perpétuelle, Op. 37
08. Liszt: La Lugubre Gondola for cello & piano, S134
09. Ropartz: Ceux qui, parmi les morts d’amour (from Quatre poèmes)
10. Fauré: Après un rêve, Op. 7 No. 1
11. Widor: Piano Quintet, Op. 7 – III. Molto Vivace
12. Louiguy: La Vie en Rose
13. Messager: L’Amour masque: ‘J’ai deux amants’
14. Hahn: La dernière valse
As the symbiosis between the art of the poet and that of the composer, the French mélodie became the jewel of the salons of the ‘Belle Époque’. By placing a string quartet and a piano around the singer, Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle, Lekeu’s Nocturne and Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson oscillate between chamber musical intimacy and orchestral ambition. Alongside these famous pioneering pieces, this programme devised by the Palazzetto Bru Zane champions a return to the art of transcription, so popular in the nineteenth century, with the aim of expanding the repertory for voice, strings and piano in order to unearth some forgotten treasures. Hence Hahn, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Massenet, La Tombelle, Ropartz, Louiguy and Messager all appear in a programme whose guiding thread is the emotions of nocturnal abandonment: the charms of twilight, the trajectory of dreams, the terror of nightmare or the exhilaration of festive occasions. Alexandre Dratwicki has made these arrangements in the style of the nineteenth century. Appropriately enough, the programme ends with La Vie en rose, for this music offers a kaleidoscope of all the colours of human feeling. The texture of solo strings and piano sets Véronique Gens’s incomparable storytelling artistry in a new light.