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The Europadisc Review

Faure - La Bonne Chanson, L’Horizon chimerique, Ballade, Mel...

Stephane Degout (baritone), Alain Planes (piano)

£12.95

Together with the bicentenaries of the births of Smetana and Bruckner, one of this year’s major musical anniversaries is the centenary of the death of French composer Gabriel Fauré (d. 4 November 1924). His complete chamber music recently appeared on an impressive six-disc set from Alpha Classics, while the complete solo piano works played by Lucas Debargue appeared on a four-disc set from Sony Classical. Until now, however, there have been no new issues devoted to a key part of Fauré’s output: his songs (perhaps unsurprising, since the excellent series of Signum discs comprising his complete ... read more

Faure - La Bonne Chanson, L’Horizon chimerique, Ballade, Mel...

Stephane Degout (baritone), Alain Planes (piano)

Now, though, the French baritone Stéphane Degout makes a welcome contribution with his latest disc on Harmonia Mundi, a generously-filled programme which contains no fewer than five of Fauré’s seven song-cycles (the only ones missing are the Chansons de Venise and La Chanson d'Ève). These are especially welcome given Degout’s reputation as one of the most sensitive of singers in the Francophone repertoire, his soft-grained voice enriched in recent years with darker hues.

Degout places the cycles in chronological order, ranging from the youthful passions of Poème d’un jour, op.21 (to three poems by Charles Grandmougin), to the extraordinary L’Horizon chimérique, op.118, his final set of songs. Central to the programme are the two most extensive cycles, the nine-song La Bonne Chanson, op.61 (setting poems from Verlaine’s eponymous collection), and the eight-song Le Jardin clos, op.106 (settings of verses by the Belgian Symbolist, Charles Van Lerberghe).

What marks out this disc as something special is not just Degout’s finely nuanced responsiveness to the texts and music (which together, in Fauré’s own words, ‘form a single entity’), but his partnership with pianist Alain Planès ,who – as he has done on previous Harmonia Mundi releases of Debussy – performs on a period piano, a Pleyel ‘Grand Patron’ of 1892. To appreciate the difference this makes to Fauré’s soundworld, one need only hear the first few bars of ‘Toujours’, the tumultuous second song of Poème d’un jour, where the passionately swirling accompaniment underpins the vehement, increasingly anguished vocal line. Yet the instrument’s quieter side, its bright treble and ominous lower register, are just as telling in the following ‘Adieu’ with its mood of resignation.

The special delicacy of the piano, as well as its capacity for a certain ‘leathery’ definition in quicker passagework, are arguably at their most affecting in La Bonne Chanson, where Degout is at his most expressively nimble. Inspired by the amateur singer Emma Bardac (the future Madame Debussy), this cycle has here an extraordinary sweep and depth (try the opening of the penultimate song, ‘N’est-ce pas ?’) which distinguish it from other recordings. Between this and Le Jardin clos, Planès performs the Ballade for piano, op.19, a work of almost Wagnerian ambition and harmonic adventurousness which even the aged Liszt found daunting. The opening may not achieve the sort of true piano possible on a modern concert grand, but the instrument’s distinctive timbre and Planès’s commanding technique and poetic engagement make this a remarkably involving account of Fauré’s most ambitious piano work.

The Symbolist world of Le Jardin clos, and of the following Mirages, op.113 (to four poems by Renée de Brimont), finds Degout and Planès equally responsive in music of sparer beauties, the stark simplicity ‘Dans la nymphée’, ‘Inscription sur le sable’ and ‘Danseuses’ as well as the watery beauties of ‘Cygne sur l’eau’ and ‘Reflets dans l’eau’ beautifully drawn.

In L’Horizon chimérique, Fauré sets four posthumously published poems by Jean de La Ville de Mirmont, killed in the first year of the Great War. The settings are remarkably vigorous and engaged for an elderly composer, encompassing an ocean voyage and a scene of nocturnal stillness before ending with the beatific glow of ‘Vaisseaux, nous vous aurons aimés’. The performers rise to the expressive challenges, as throughout this marvellous disc, with performances of the greatest subtlety and immediacy. Both recording (at the Abbaye de Royaumont in the Val-d'Oise) and presentation are first-rate. As a centenary tribute to one of the great song composers, this collection will be hard to beat.

The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

‘In the black, dismal dungeon of despair’... Tackling music’s challenges 15th May 2024

15th May 2024

Our column last week on ‘The Problem of Attracting Audiences’ prompted a typically thoughtful response from one of our regular readers, which in turn drew us to reflect further on this issue. The number of performers, critics and other commentators weighing into the current debate ought to persuade all but the most sceptical of followers that the arts in general, and classical music in particular, are currently facing a moment of real crisis. And even though there are plenty of other areas of the contemporary world that are comparably embattled (some quite literally), the problems confronting the arts are no less serious: how we tackle them will determine what’s left when (if?) the world gets through its current bleak phase (economic challenges, rising authoritarianism, multiple conflicts and flashpoints, global warming…).

As we’ve remarked repeatedly in the past, a... read more

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