After exploring lesser-known works for light lyric tenor from the opéra-comique repertoire with the multi-award-winning So Romantique ! (ALPHA924), this new recording focuses on a unique genre: French mélodie with orchestra. "Deeply attuned to the chamber dimension of music, I was naturally drawn to this form, which is rarely programmed today. Attention to tone colour is essential here, particularly in the interpretation of such brief pieces, an exercise at the very heart of my approach as a mélodiste," says Cyrille Dubois. Designed by the researchers and editors of the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme allows us to rediscover lost treasures of French heritage: refinement, the art of suggestion, delicacy, nobility of expression – everything here is so poetic!

Sound/Video

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1

Gounod: Le Soir
2

Godard: Embarquez-vous !
3

Saint-Saëns: Aimons-nous
4

Vierne: Chanson d’automne
5

Dubois: Printemps
6

Godard: Trois Fragments poétiques, op.13: 1. Lamartine
7

Gounod: Ma belle amie est morte
8

Fauré: Les Roses d’Ispahan
9

La Tombelle: Berceuse pyrénéenne
10

Massenet: Le Poète et le fantôme
11

Holmès: Ne nous oubliez pas !
12

Godard: Trois Fragments poétiques, op.13: 2. Alfred de Musset
13

La Tombelle: Sonnet d’Estienne de La Boétie
14

Fauré: En Prière
15

Dubois: Pourquoi les oiseaux chantent
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Franck: La Procession, FWV 88
17

David: La Vengeance des fleurs
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Godard: Trois Fragments poétiques, op.13: 3. Victor Hugo
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Saint-Saëns: Extase
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Thomas: Le Soir
21

Saint-Saëns: Lever de Soleil sur le Nil

Europadisc Review

With a repertoire ranging from Baroque works by Lully, Charpentier and Rameau via Berlioz and Offenbach to Bizet and Reynaldo Hahn, Cyrille Dubois has fast become one of the leading French lyric tenors of today. His voice is light, with an apparently effortless top end, gentle in timbre but with a rapid vibrato which, while finely focused, is capable of injecting a harnessed passion wherever needed. Three years ago, partnered by the Orchestre National de Lille under Pierre Dumoussaud, he presented ‘So romantique !’, an album on the Alpha label devoted to the revival of ‘profoundly sentimental’ French operatic rarities written for the ténor de grâce voice. Now he is back again, with Dumoussaud this time conducting the Brussels Philharmonic, in a programme of mélodies with orchestral accompaniment – a genre rarely encountered in present-day concert halls, but which, between 1860 and 1920, saw a prolific outpouring from the most prominent French composers, many now largely neglected.

The orchestral mélodie was often written with specific singers in mind, meaning that few were published. Consequently many of them now exist only in manuscript form, with all the attendant problems of legibility and deterioration. This is where the indefatigable researchers and editors of the Palazzetto Bru Zane have (as on ‘So romantique !’) come to the rescue, devising a programme of enchanting songs where vocal clarity, intelligibility, and subtle instrumental and emotional colouring are the order of the day. Entitled ‘So poétique !’, it ranges from such well-known figures as Gounod, Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Fauré to names like Fernand de La Tombelle and Félicien David whose modern revival is largely thanks to the determined efforts of the Bru Zane team.

This is a surprisingly wide-ranging collection, and while maintaining exquisite refinement throughout, Dubois and his colleagues bring out an abundance of colour and subtle contrasts in works whose subjects range from love and loss to times of the day, nature pictures and religious imagery. Gounod’s Le Soir, setting a text by Alphonse de Lamartine, opens with a pastoral-sounding flute, and bathes the listener in gently alluring strains, with Dubois bringing tasteful intensification on sustained notes. Benjamin Godard’s Embarquez-vous ! is an invitation to a pleasure cruise that rocks to and fro; it would not be out of place in a light operetta, and Dubois makes a highly persuasive tour guide.

The mood then takes a more serious tone with Saint-Saëns’s Aimons-nous, a setting of verse by Théodore de Banville which, although strophic (like several other items on the programme), is subject to careful variation in tone and inflection. Louis Vierne’s setting of Verlaine’s pithy Chanson d’automne is one of the most rewarding items on the programme, its very concentration inviting the listener to attend closely. Théodore Dubois’s more expansive Printemps is a more conventional nature portrait comparing the sights and sounds of spring unfavourably with the delights of the beloved.

Gounod’s setting of Théodore Gaultier’s Ma belle amie est morte (My beautiful love is dead) adds an element of elegiac passion to the mournful text, and even when lines are repeated, the music is carefully varied. Dubois’s sensitive, committed performance, rising to an eloquent climax, is one of the highlights of the programme. Fauré’s Les Roses d’Isfahan has prominent cello and horn solos, but little else to evoke the very specific locale, whose flora and fruits once again pale in comparison with the beloved, yet Dubois caresses every phrase to turn this into a real jewel. More exotic is the Berceuse pyrénéene (Pyrenean Lullaby) by La Tombelle, with its drones, modal turns and repeated exhortation to sleep. A Parisian by birth, La Tombelle seems to have found in the Pyrenees the sort of dreamy ‘otherness’ that some of his compatriots located further south on the Iberian peninsula; the ending, on a falsetto G, is magical.

One of the better-known items here is Massenet’s Le Poète et le fantôme (The Poet and the Ghost), whose rapid exchanges of dialogue is not overplayed by Dubois, emerging rather as an inner dialogue, with all the urgency that an anguished soul can often have. Augusta Holmès’s Ne nous oubliez pas ! (Do not forget us!) is a charming and airily scored setting of her own text, and its note of studied yet carefree abandon is perfectly captured by Dubois and the deft playing of the orchestra.

The programme takes a more religious turn with Fauré’s En Prière, another of those works whose words (imagining Jesus at prayer) are rather less convincing on paper than when set to music of such gracefulness and performed with such fluency. Still more mawkish could be Stephan Bordèse’s poem Pourquoi les oiseaux chantent (Why the birds sing), imagining the infant Jesus giving birds the power of song. Yet Théodore Dubois’s tender setting and his namesake’s rapt performance are, once again, most persuasive. A more imposing religious item is César Franck’s La Procession, which follows a church procession, building to an impressive climax as the singer implores the sun to cast its rays on the monstrance being surrounded by the kneeling faithful.

Félicien David’s Le Vengeance des fleurs (Revenge of the Flowers) is a curiously beguiling short tale of how a bouquet of flowers plucked by a young woman decide to poison her with their scent as she sleeps, only for Cupid to restore the colour to her features. It’s the sort of charming miniature scene that seems tailor-made for Dubois’s engagingly intimate vocal style. Musically, the disc reaches its climax in the final three items, Saint-Saëns’s Extase (Ecstasy) and Lever de Soleil sur le Nil (Sunrise over the Nile), separated by Ambroise Thomas’s Le Soir, which opens with a lone clarinet answered by a solo viola before the song proper begins with its gently swaying motion. Between them, these last three tracks amply demonstrate the sheer range of shading and attention to details of Dubois, Dumoussaud and the Brussels Philharmonic.

Not the least attractive element of this disc is that Godard’s orchestral Three Poetic Fragments (each inspired by a text from a separate poet) is interweaved among the song settings, and each is preceded by a reading of the relevant text by Dubois himself. He’s just as communicative and animated with the spoken word as with the sung voice. Most immediately appealing is the first movement (de Lamartine), catchiest is the third (Victor Hugo), but most spellbinding and atmospheric is the second (Alfred de Musset), with its lovely solos for clarinet, flute and harp. It’s the cherry on the cake for an exceptionally well-programmed and impeccably performed and presented album which will appeal to vocal connoisseurs everywhere. Highly recommended!

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Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Condition	Description
New	Brand new item, only ever sourced from the official UK distributor. Usually seal-wrapped, although a minority of labels do not use seal-wrap.
Used - Mint	Used item in excellent condition. Not usually seal-wrapped.
Used - Good	Used item with some minor signs of wear and tear. Never seal-wrapped.
Used - Acceptable	Used item with obvious scuffs or cosmetic damage to the case or booklet. Never seal-wrapped.

Cyrille Dubois: So Poetique

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Europadisc Review

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