#Audirvana plus single song cycle series
At first the piano resonates alarmingly, but the acoustic settles and is kind to the voices.īilled as the first volume of a complete Poulenc song series from Signum, this disc employs six singers. Anderson finds a deadpan, butter-wouldn’t-melt character for Vilmorin’s more suggestive lines, while Maltman brings good humour and a poker face to the earthy Chansons gaillardes. Milne’s bright, light, eager soprano at the start of Metamorphoses counterweighs the penetration she exercises on Fiancailles pour rire. The quietly shattering end of the war-ravaged Bleuet, from Murray, is one such occasion. Alongside Malcolm Martineau’s searching piano, the singers find a consistent character: considered, spacious, unaffected but cumulatively intense, to the extent that you may need to pause and catch your breath every so often. Poulenc’s Eluard settings and most of the Apollinaires are still to come. Her vital interpretation of the not-quite-childlike cycle La courte paille has been recorded before, with Pascal Rogé, but treasure like this can bear revisiting.Ĭhristopher Maltman, Lisa Milne and Robert Murray are the main figures in the first volume, which is centred on the quirkily profound poetry of Louise de Vilmorin. The advocacy of Graham Johnson’s Songmakers’ Almanac was a prime mover, and it’s fitting that for a new generation’s project these fine singers should be joined by Songmaker doyenne Felicity Lott, a role model and inspiration if ever there were one.
Once the object of a cult following and otherwise treated with slight disdain, Poulenc’s songs have drawn deepening responses over the years until hailed like a 20th-century Schubert for their range, subtlety and emotional wisdom. You don’t really want to pick things out.” You can sit down and just listen to it from start to finish. “It certainly is – it is a real recital. “A nicely balanced and arranged recital for all of these voices, so a promising start to this new Poulenc series.” She really sings the French as to the Manoir born”. “Lisa Milne performs wonderfully throughout this Poulenc disc. “There are so many delicious reminders of how beautifully written these piano parts are – you can hear him relishing them without overdoing them – there’s some simple but absolutely beautiful touches for the pianist.” Hilary Finch “They are are all Poulenc’s responses to 16th Century verse – it’s a cherishable little point in the recital.”
Those 3 together just work really nicely.” Hilary Finch & Andrew McGregor, CD Review, BBC Radio 3 (broadcast 26/ 03/11)Īndrew McGregor “This is the first volume, and I like the way he’s built the sequence that this song (To the Guitar) comes from, because we have Christopher Maltman singing the serenade at the end of the Chanson Gaillardes, then we have that guitar song with Lorna Anderson, and then we have a cameo from the baritone Jonathan Lemalu – his only appearance on this volume singing the epitaph. The best performances, though – Murray in the early Cocteau cycle Cocardes, Maltman in the Chansons Gaillardes, Milne in the Fiançailles pour Rire – are very fine, even if it remains a disc to sample piecemeal rather than as a whole, and doesn’t suggest that the series will supersede EMI’s box set of Poulenc’s songs compiled in the late 1990s. But the rationale for what is in this collection escapes me, and is not explained in the sleeve notes: it’s certainly not chronological, for the songs range from the beginning of Poulenc’s career in the 1920s to near its end in 1960 nor are they grouped by poet, while the layout of the song texts without dates doesn’t help. The rest is shared more evenly between the soprano Lisa Milne, tenor Robert Murray and baritone Christopher Maltman. That would explain, for instance, why in this first collection the bass baritone Jonathan Lemalu features on just a single song lasting barely a minute, the soprano Lorna Anderson in just the brief Trois Poèmes de Louise de Vilmorin and one other setting of Ronsard, while soprano Felicity Lott appears like a grand dame for the final cycle here, La Courte Paille. This the start of what is projected as a five-disc survey of Poulenc’s songs, with the implication that the same set of six singers, with Malcolm Martineau as the ever-immaculate accompanist, will feature throughout.
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