Green: Melodies francaises – Philippe Jaroussky, Jerome Ducros, Quatuor Ebene (2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96kHz | Time – 1:51:52 minutes | 1,86 GB | Genre: Classical
Official Digital Download – Source: highresaudio.com | © Warner Classics / Erato
Recorded: Salle Colonne, Paris, 2–7. vi 2014, 13–17. x 2014
In his second album of French song from the 19th and 20th centuries – following the ground-breaking Opium, released in 2009 – countertenor Philippe Jaroussky explores settings of poems by Paul Verlaine (1844-96). One of France’s most revered fin-de-siècle poets and a pioneer of the decadent and symbolist movements, Verlaine famously declared his philosophy in the first line of Art poétique in 1874: ‘De la musique avant toute chose’ – ‘music before all else.’ In his poetry, the sound and the shape of each line carries meaning and expression, adding resonance to the words, which often evoke a twilit world of ambiguous emotions.
Verlaine has duly inspired many French composers – from his contemporaries, such as Debussy (whose piano piece Clair de lune draws on the poem of the same name and features on this album), Fauré, Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Chabrier, through the following generation (Honegger and Varèse) to songwriters from the 1940s-1970s, including Georges Brassens, Charles Trenet and Léo Ferré.
The album takes its title from one of the poems in the collection Romances sans paroles (‘Songs without words’ – the musical connection again). Verlaine himself gave it an English name, ‘Green’, and there are no fewer than three settings in Jaroussky’s recital – by Debussy, Fauré and André Caplet, the latter best known for his orchestrations of Debussy piano music.
Jaroussky, speaking of a Verlaine setting by Reynaldo Hahn, has said that poet and composer “conveys a feeling of both moonlit abstraction and of the allusive, but very sensual caress of the beloved. There is always a sensual element in Verlaine’s writing.”
That languorous yet understated sensuality belongs to a different world from the Baroque repertoire most closely associated with Jaroussky. When he recorded Opium with pianist Jérôme Ducros (who returns for the follow-up), he said: “Many people will probably wonder why a countertenor should sing these songs, but if you think about it, the countertenor voice as such has no repertoire of its own, except the modern music written specifically for it. For the most part we sing music written for castratos who – as we know – had very different voices from ours. So why not venture into other musical worlds if we feel they are suited to our voices?
“I’ve always felt a special affinity for French song,” he continues. “Even if a singer has to master a number of languages, his own language always retains a special flavour – especially French, which has so many vowels and secret nuances … In Debussy, Massenet or Reynaldo Hahn, it’s all a matter of shades of colour.” It is this sensitive, insightful approach that Jaroussky brings to Green.
If the essence of this kind of French song can be elusive, Forum Opéra praised Jaroussky for capturing it in Opium: “His attention to diction, bringing it close to spoken language, draws out all the meaning of the poems. Thanks to his musical intelligence and long-breathed phrasing, each of these songs is spun out to the fullest effect … They haunt the memory …”
For Green, Philippe Jaroussky and Jérôme Ducros are joined by some distinguished guest artists: the contralto Nathalie Stutzmann (on whose Handel album Heroes from the Shadows, Jaroussky sang in duet), and the Ebène Quartet, whose award-winning recordings of French chamber music form a pillar of the Erato catalogue.
Tracklist:
Léo Ferré (1916–1993) 1 Colloque sentimental (3:27)
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) 2 Mandoline (1:41)
Déodat de Séverac (1872–1921) 3 Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit (2:55)
Józef Zygmunt Szulc (1875–1956) 4 Clair de lune (3:14)
Claude Debussy (1862–1918) 5 En sourdine (3:00)
Claude Debussy 6 Fantoches (1:17)
Claude Debussy 7 Clair de lune (3:10)
Gabriel Fauré 8 C’est l’extase (2:48)
Ernest Chausson (1855–1899) 9 La Chanson bien douce (2:51)
Gabriel Fauré 10 Green (1:41)
Charles Bordes (1863–1909) 11 Ô triste, triste était mon âme (1:43)
Camille Saint-Saëns (1935–1921) 12 Le Vent dans la plaine (‘C’est l’extase langoureuse’) (1:21)
Gabriel Fauré 13 En sourdine (2:54)
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841–1894) 14 Air de Fisch-Ton-Kan (‘Qui je suis’) (2:34)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874–1947) 15 En sourdine (3:13)
Gabriel Fauré 16 Prison (‘Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit’) (2:17)
Claude Debussy 17 Mandoline (1:29)
Ernest Chausson 18 Apaisement (‘La lune blanche’) (2:18)
Arthur Honegger (1892–1955) 19 Un grand sommeil noir (1:59)
Gabriel Fauré 20 Spleen (‘Il pleure dans mon coeur’) (2:06)
Jules Massenet (1842–1912) 21 Rêvons, c’est l’heure (‘La lune blanche’) (3:44)
Edgard Varèse (1883–1965) 22 Un grand sommeil noir (2:56)
Léo Ferré 23 Écoutez la chanson bien douce (2:37)
Gabriel Fauré 24 Clair de lune (2:37)
Reynaldo Hahn 25 Chanson d’automne (2:10)
André Caplet (1878–1925) 26 Green (3:10)
Claude Debussy 27 Il pleure dans mon coeur (2:30)
Poldowski (1879–1932) 28 L’Heure exquise (‘La lune blanche’) (2:35)
Poldowski 29 Colombine (1:43)
Charles Trenet (1913–2001) 30 Verlaine (Chanson d’automne) (2:50)
Poldowski 31 Mandoline (1:27)
Florent Schmitt (1870–1958) 32 Il pleure dans mon coeur (2:59)
Reynaldo Hahn 33 D’une prison (‘Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit’) (3:02)
Emmanuel Chabrier 34 Air de Poussah (‘J’engraisse’) (2:59)
Charles Koechlin (1867–1950) 35 Il pleure dans mon coeur (3:06)
Gabriel Fauré 36 La lune blanche luit dans les bois (2:50)
Charles Bordes 37 Promenade sentimentale (3:30)
Claude Debussy 38 Green (2:16)
Joseph Canteloube (1879–1957) 39 Colloque sentimental (4:45)
Claude Debussy 40 Les Ingénus (2:20)
Claude Debussy 41 Le Faune (2:09)
Claude Debussy 42 Colloque sentimental (3:43)
Georges Brassens (1921–1981) 43 Colombine (1:48)
Personnel:
Philippe Jaroussky contre-ténor
Jérôme Ducros piano
Quatuor Ebène
Pierre Colombet violon
Gabriel Le Magadure violon
Mathieu Herzog alto
Raphaël Merlin violoncelle
Nathalie Stutzmann alto
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