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SEEN AND HEARD  RECITAL REVIEW
 

Chausson, Fauré, Debussy, Koechlin, Ravel, Poulenc: Sandrine Piau (soprano), Susan Manoff (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 27. 5.2008  (AO)


Sandrine Piau has a very unusual voice, even “whiter” than those of Christine Schaefer, Anne-Sofie von Otter or Véronique Gens. Her strengths lie in freshness of tone, and an innate feel for vocal line.  Thus she’s become so admired in baroque and early music, where the purity of her voice seems to illuminate the music. In Handel, Bach and Haydn, she is  superb. She has  also worked with the innovative Accentus Choir and Laurent Equilbey whose recording of Brahms’s German Requiem is like nothing else!

Piau’s background in the discipline of baroque makes for a voice trained for precise detail and graduated nuance.  That’s why her recording of Debussy songs was so exquisite. She understood his idiom, poised on the cusp of modernity, and let it breathe, without overwhelming it in late Romantic syrup.  French chanson, even in the mid 19^th century, has a certain delicacy so Piau’s style, though unusual  could also reveal its refined essence.  Yet the magic  of which Piau is so very capable of creating didn’t reveal itself in the Chausson group of songs starting this recital.  No surprise  there,of course;  first sets in a Wigmore Hall debut (I believe) never show a singer at his or her best.  Indeed, Piau seemed more vulnerable than one might expect from someone of her experience.  With the Fauré songs  however, we had a much better idea of  her capabilities. Instead of indulging in their perfumed lusciousness, Piau focussed more on shaping the curves of the melodic line. For a change one could appreciate the lucidity of Leconte de Lisle’s Les roses d’Ispahan without watching a soprano effect an exaggerated swoon. On the other hand, these are sensual songs and here  Piau expressed the butterfly, le papillon léger, who has elusively floated away, rather than the roses earthbound dans le gaine de mousse (wrapped in their mossy sheaths).

Only one of the Debussy songs she chose this evening were favourites from her collaboration with Jacques van Immerseel.  Susan Manoff is an assertive pianist, probably more at home in the grand mode, so these Debussy songs favoured a dominant piano part. Manoff ‘s playing was very expressive. She’s very definite about phrasing, the strong single chords in Nuit d’étoiles shining with unremitting force.  If this stressed the angularities, Piau curved her lines, stretching her legato to the extent that individual words were sacrificed to the swooping arc of pure sound. At times, it was almost a duet between flute and percussion. Nonetheless, it was clear that Piau and Manoff worked  together so closely that perhaps a little more distance might, for once, have been advisable.  So much so that at the end of Nuit d’étoiles, where there’s a sudden leap up the scale, Piau had to force herself back into independence. Sometimes it’s not good to be too focussed on the partnership and  perhaps that’s why Zéphyr was so successful.  It’s short and breezy, and Piau could give herself fully to the spirit of the song.

With Ravel, Piau was more herself. The Cinq mélodies populaires grecques are cheerful pieces and Piau responded with the lithe, light touch she des so well.  The revelation of the evening, however, was the group of Koechlin songs. Koechlin can be quite quirky, his modernity wrapped in comfortable associations that disguise their true originailty. Sept chansons pour Gladys was inspired by the movies star Lilian Harvey. The bizarre, asymmetric rhythms of M’a dit Amour have a real sense of sophisticated 1930’s wit, as they twist and curl upon each other.  Jungle rhythms!  (Koechlin wrote the first “Jungle Book”, songs to the Kipling stories.)  Exoticism was  always a powerful influence on French culture, from Loti and Ravel to Picasso and Africanisme to Messiaen.  Piau and Manoff really grasped the structure of these songs with their tightly coiled counter themes and nervous sensuality.  M’a dit Amour, garde-toi, garde-toi,  de toi-mệme ! (Love told me: Beware !)  Beneath Piau’s surface coolness glow dark embers. Even wilder are the cross currents in La naïde, the piano part choppily beating out bass lines while the voice soars like a saxophone.  Piau was now definitely in her element, spitting out sharp consonants with exact precision. Hitherto, her diction was more blurred than usual. Now she navigated the convoluted phrases deftly. Beneath the angelic beauty of her voice there’s real asperity.

These Koechlin songs appear on Piau’s latest recording, Evocation, together with songs by Schoenberg and Zemlinsky.  Perhaps that’s where Piau’s real interests lie  but tonight she was singing the more audience-friendly Chausson and Debussy.  Everyone loves Chemins d’Amour, but her heart wasn’t in it.  Piau may yet, like Accentus, emerge as a specialist in modern music, as Christine Schaefer has done so successfully.  As evidence, she concluded with Poulenc’s Banalitiés. Poulenc is even more sardonic than Koechlin, and in Appollinaire he has by far the greater poet.  While these songs are so familiar and can be styled with much firmness, Piau’s minimalist approach isn’t so far from Bernac’s ideas about singing Poulenc with understated candour.  So however disappointing the late Romantics in this evening may have been, I don’t think we heard Piau’s full potential.  In repertoire which benefits from the ethereal quality of her voice and her deft way with phrases, she really is unique.

Anne Ozorio


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