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.

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Lekeu: Trois Poèmes: 3. Nocturne
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Fauré: La Bonne Chanson, op.61: 3. La lune blanche luit dans les bois
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Berlioz: Les Nuits d’été, H81: 6. L'île inconnue
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La Tombelle: Orientale
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Massenet: Nuit d’Espagne
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Saint-Saëns: Désir de l’orient
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Chausson: Chanson perpétuelle
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Liszt: La Lugubre Gondola, for cello and piano, S134
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Ropartz: Quatre Poèmes: 3. Ceux qui, parmi les morts d’amour
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Fauré: Trois Mélodies, op.7: 1. Après un Rêve
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Widor: Piano Quintet no.1 in D minor, Op.7: III. Molto vivace
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Louiguy: La Vie en rose
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Messager: L’Amour masqué: J’ai deux amants
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Hahn: Une Revue: La dernière valse

Europadisc Review

Any new release from French soprano Véronique Gens is worth investing time in, as we found with her superb 2019 disc of Chausson’s Poème de l’amour et de la mer (one of our Top Ten of lat year). More recently, her superb comedic turn in Offenbach’s Maître Peronilla also caught our attention. On her latest disc for the Alpha label, she focuses on a genre of which she is one of today’s leading exponents: the French mélodie or art song. Together with the Palazzetto Bru Zane in partnership with Alpha, she has devised an absorbing programme on the theme of the Night (‘Nuits’) in its many manifestations: as a time for Love, as a bringer of Dreams of distant places, of Nightmares that lay bare our anxieties, and as a time of festive Intoxication.

Organised clearly in four parts, and with repertoire stretching from Berlioz to Louiguy – from the emergence of the mélodie as a distinctive art form, through the riches of late Romanticism, to the Belle Époque and the heady pleasures of the Années folles – this would already be enough to whet the appetite. What makes this disc really distinctive is the brilliant idea of filling a gap in the repertoire between the classic mélodie with piano accompaniment and the orchestral song. Taking its cue from Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle, as well as Lekeu’s and Fauré’s own chamber versions of their Nocturne and La Bonne Chanson respectively, this project presents its songs in arrangements for voice with piano quintet (the formidable instrumentalists of I Giardini). It’s an inventive but sensitive take on this repertoire, and one that gives extra colour to these works often verging on the orchestral, while preserving the essential intimacy of the originals and taking care not to steal the limelight with overly showy adaptations.

The advantages of this approach become ever more obvious as the programme progresses. They are already apparent in the sustained strings that offer support to the voice in Lekeu’s gently luxuriant Nocturne and Fauré’s ‘La lune blanche’ from La Bonne Chanson (minus its double bass and transposed down to a velvety middle register). ‘L’îsle inconnue’ from Berlioz’s Nuits d’été successfully straddles a middle ground between the piano-accompanied original and the now-familiar orchestral version, and Gens’s radiant voice inhabits this joyous music with consummate ease.

Evoking the attraction of distant climes, the piano quintet arrangement of La Tombelle’s Orientale features sinewy violin figuration that seems to beckon the dreamer away to a land of plentiful pleasures before returning them tenderly to sleep. Massenet’s Nuit d’Espagne has catchily Hispanic inflections that belie the salon-style medium, while Saint-Saëns’s Désir de l’Orient (originally a tenor aria from his opera La Princesse jaune) progresses from the mysteriously evocative piano cascades that punctuate the verses of the song to a euphoric, purely instrumental postlude taken from the same opera’s overture: a splendid addition by arranger Alexandre Dratwicki.

Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle plunges us into the anxieties of nighttime, and here Gens demonstrates her ability to delve deep into the world of emotional insight, with I Giardini providing exquisitely subtle gradations of light and shade; this feels on repeated listening like the real heart of the programme, and certainly one of its highlights. Cellist Pauline Buet and pianist David Violi take centre-stage in a gaunt, haunting performance of Liszt’s La Lugubre Gondole (‘The Funeral Gondola’), the cello line laying bare the mournfulness of the scene. Ropartz’s ‘Ce qui, parmi les morts d’amour’ from his Four Poems after Heinrich Heine’s Intermezzo is more inward looking, a distinctively French take on the German master’s verses, while Fauré’s justly celebrated ‘Après un rêve’, perfectly situated within the recital as a whole, offers scope for Gens’s wide dynamic range in a performance of achingly powerful immediacy and clarity.

A marvellously light-footed performance of the Molto vivace from Widor’s First Piano Quintet sets the lighter tone for the recital’s final section. It paves the way surprisingly well for an Edith Piaf classic, Marcel Louiguy’s La Vie en rose, with Gens and I Giardini clearly relishing the relaxed mood, and slipping into an almost diseuse-style central section before the sweeping expanded return of the main tune. The waltz-like inflections of Messager’s ‘J’ai deux amants’, the hit song from his musical comedy L’Amour masqué, make for a nice connection with the closing number, Reynaldo Hahn’s ‘La Dernière Valse’, in a performance that combines a dawn-like calmness with poise and radiance, dispelling any remaining thoughts of nocturnal angst.

From first note to last, this is an hour of pure pleasure, thoughtfully planned and arranged, and resplendently sung and played throughout. Gens is very much in her element here, on ‘home turf’ as it were, and the compellingly idiomatic performances are expertly captured at the Salle philharmonique de Liège by producer and engineer Olivier Rosset. Another triumph!

Reviews

Gens’s performances are as spellbinding as ever. It’s hard to think of another singer working today who is more compelling in this repertory, with every word crystal clear and every nuance of the text perfectly inflected. Andrew Clements

The Guardian 23 April 2020