MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger

REVIEW


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

alternatively
CD: MDT AmazonUK AmazonUS
Sound Samples & Downloads

Francis POULENC (1899-1963)
The Complete Songs - Vol. 2

Toréador – Chanson hispano-italienne (1918) [6.26] *
Trois Poèmes de Louise Lalanne (1931) [3.45] **
Deux poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (1938) [6.01] ***
Trois chansons de Federico Garcia Lorca (1947) [5.09] ****
Paul et Virginie (1946) [1.09] *
Nuage (1956) [2.24] *****
Hymne (1947) [4.01]******
Ce doux petit visage (1939) [1.53] ****
Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon (1943) [3.54] ****
Priez pour paix (1938) [2.41] ***
Tel jour telle nuit (1936-7) [15.09] **
La tragique histoire du petit René (1934-5) [1.29] ******
Le petit garçon trop bien portant (1934-5) [2.04] ****
Le travail du peintre (1956) [12.15]*
Les chemins de l'amour (1940) [3.52] **
Lorna Anderson (soprano) ****; Jonathan Lemalu (bass-baritone) ******; Felicity Lott (soprano) **; Christopher Maltman (baritone) *; Lisa Milne (soprano) *****; Robert Murray (tenor) ***; Malcolm Martineau (piano)
rec. 14-20 February and 6-10 September 2010, St. Michael and All Angels in Summertown, Oxford
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD 263 [72:17]

Experience Classicsonline

This second volume of a projected complete survey of Poulenc's songs – a delightful prospect – begins with one of his earliest and longest examples, the waltz-song Toréador, which Poulenc described as a caricature of a music-hall song. Christopher Maltman sings it stylishly, with Malcolm Martineau contributing his usual artistry in conjuring a whole world of colours and moods from the piano part. With its subtle tempo fluctuations, it's a tricky song to bring off, but the pair achieve remarkable unanimity. Felicity Lott sings the three settings of Louise Lalanne (- a pseudonym for Marie Laurencin in Nos. 1 and 3, Apollinaire No.2) with her own distinctive artistry, if not always complete comfort or tonal beauty, while Martineau is quite sensational.
 
The two major items on this CD are the cycle Tel jour, telle nuit and Le travail du peintre. In the cycle, which is among the composer's masterpieces, Felicity Lott is still able to float some of the very highest notes, but elsewhere she takes a moment to settle on the centre. Her musicianship is still a lesson for all, making the fact that the poems are more naturally expressed by a man almost of no account, but one has to make other allowances. To find her in her prime, one should listen to her wonderful performance of the same cycle on Hommage à Francis Poulenc (Forlane). Alternatively, choose the last track on this CD for her ravishing performance of Les chemins de l'amour.
 
The thumb-nail sketches of seven artists - Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miró and Villon - grouped as Le travail de peintre (poems by Eluard), are sensitively sung by Maltman, though his slow vibrato occasionally threatens to distract. In the two Apollinaire settings Robert Murray sings superbly, showing a marvellous range of vocal colours and especially brilliant in Dans le jardin d'Anna. I should have been glad to hear more than nine minutes of him. Lorna Anderson has slightly more to do and is excellent in the three Lorca settings. Jonathan Lemalu (five and a half minutes) has burnished tone, heard to splendid effect in Hymne, and he is equally impressive in the completely different mood of La tragique histoire du petit René. Saddest of all is the measly two and a half minutes allowed for our enjoyment of the wonderful legato lines of Lisa Milne. Her Nuage is captivating.
 
So, generally these fine singers score pretty high in their projection and pronunciation of diverse texts, and their all-round musicianship. One's regrets over the short allocation of time given to some of them surely speaks for itself. Nevertheless, I am tempted to say that Martineau is the most outstanding performer here. I should love to hear him in Poulenc's solo piano music.
 
As in Volume One, it is good to have texts included, but again there are a couple of typos in the poems. Also as in the previous volume, Roger Nichols' notes are authoritative but do not cover every song. Why is this?
 
Overall this CD is guaranteed to bring hours of pleasure - a must-have for Poulenc fans.

Philip Borg-Wheeler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 


EXPLORE MUSICWEB INTERNATIONAL

Making a Donation to MusicWeb

Writing CD reviews for MWI

About MWI
Who we are, where we have come from and how we do it.

Site Map

How to find a review

How to find articles on MusicWeb
Listed in date order

Review Indexes
   By Label
      Select a label and all reviews are listed in Catalogue order
   By Masterwork
            Links from composer names (eg Sibelius) are to resource pages with links to the review indexes for the individual works as well as other resources.

Themed Review pages

Jazz reviews

 

Discographies
   Composer
      Composer surveys
   National
      Unique to MusicWeb -
a comprehensive listing of all LP and CD recordings of given works
.
Prepared by Michael Herman

The Collector’s Guide to Gramophone Company Record Labels 1898 - 1925
Howard Friedman

Book Reviews

Complete Books
We have a number of out of print complete books on-line

Interviews
With Composers, Conductors, Singers, Instumentalists and others
Includes those on the Seen and Heard site

Nostalgia

Nostalgia CD reviews

Records Of The Year
Each reviewer is given the opportunity to select the best of the releases

Monthly Best Buys
Recordings of the Month and Bargains of the Month

Comment
Arthur Butterworth Writes

An occasional column

Phil Scowcroft's Garlands
British Light Music articles

Classical blogs
A listing of Classical Music Blogs external to MusicWeb International

Reviewers Logs
What they have been listening to for pleasure

Announcements

 

Community
Bulletin Board

Give your opinions or seek answers

Reviewers
Past and present

Helpers invited!

Resources
How Did I Miss That?

Currently suspended but there are a lot there with sound clips


Composer Resources

British Composers

British Light Music Composers

Other composers

Film Music (Archive)
Film Music on the Web (Closed in December 2006)

Programme Notes
For concert organizers

External sites
British Music Society
The BBC Proms
Orchestra Sites
Recording Companies & Retailers
Online Music
Agents & Marketing
Publishers
Other links
Newsgroups
Web News sites etc

PotPourri
A pot-pourri of articles

MW Listening Room
MW Office

Advice to Windows Vista users  
Questionnaire    
Site History  
What they say about us
What we say about us!
Where to get help on the Internet
CD orders By Special Request
Graphics archive
Currency Converter
Dictionary
Magazines
Newsfeed  
Web Ring
Translation Service

Rules for potential reviewers :-)
Do Not Go Here!
April Fools






Error processing SSI file