Songs by LOUIS DUREY - Hyperion French Song Edition Le/Roux/Johnson CD A67257

Description: CD is like new. Small scratch out on back of jewel case at UPC. Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Of the composers Henri Collet and Jean Cocteau arbitrarily defined as Les Six, Louis Durey (1888-1979) remains the least known. A check at Tower Records's website reveals Durey only as a minor adjunct to a few Les Six compilation albums. Even an old Musical Heritage Society recording of piano compositions by Durey is no longer in their catalog. This collection of songs thus becomes the first release devoted exclusively to the composer's music in some time. It's welcome because of that, but also because of its intrinsic artistic quality and fine performance. The songs in question date from 1918 and 1919, a period when Durey's main musical influence shifted from Satie to Ravel. The poetic texts reflect the composer's broad culture and tastes: Apollinaire, Cocteau, Theocritus, Petronius, Heine, and Evariste Parny are among those represented. Even the very few surrealistic works in this lot display a sense of confiding intimacy and exquisite detail. (Which is pretty remarkable, when you're setting lines that translate into English as “Music to vegetal ears/As well as elephantine/Fishes scream out of the Gulf Stream/Tin can juicier than a fig . . . “) The melodic element expands upon the natural cadences of the French language and is secondary in importance from that perspective; though appealing enough, you probably won't go home whistling anything on this release. Instead, the main musical interest lies within the accompaniment, and the manner in which it gives voice to the contours of the emotionally protean text. In this, Durey is consistently inventive. He resorts, for example, to imitative counterpoint in “Le cheval,“ showing us the horse musically as it flexes its four legs; while two spare, unadorned accompanying lines provide an almost classical limpidity to “Ces roses, humides de rosée.“ This is deceptively simple music, filled with a subtle charm. François Le Roux is an exceptional interpreter of these songs. His diction is a delight, including the spoken selections in Apollinaire's Le bestiaire. (Poulenc and Durey wrote their respective cycles on this Apollianirian opus at the same time, without being aware of each other's work.) His voice lacks the kind of distinctly honeyed tone that both Charles Panzera and Gérard Souzay possessed, but it is an extremely flexible instrument that seems to breathe the music naturally, rather than sing it. (Indeed, the song is on the breath. It helps explain his vocal security after singing a demanding and varied repertoire, in opera and song, for more than two decades.) Le Roux is also a master of imaginative phrasing, as exemplified both in the long lines of “Oranger dont la voûte épaisse“ and the magical, repeated diminuendos of “La tortue.“ Graham Johnson provides a perfect partner to Le Roux. He's also responsible for the excellent liner notes, which include not merely an analysis of Durey's early career, but also an essay discussing each poet whose work appears on this recording. Song texts are provided in French and English, with both Johnson's comments and Durey's (from his Catalogue Commenté). However, the ordering of songs is off. The four selections of Epigrammes de Théocrite precede Troi poèmes de Pétrone on the CD. The jewel box reproduces this information correctly, but both the index to the liner notes and the sequential texts reverse them. I hope that Durey's many other works for various chamber ensembles and full orchestra will someday be recorded. In the meantime, this release provides a tantalizing glimpse of a fine talent that deserves to be remembered as more than the sixth member of Les Six. --Barry Brenesal, Fanfare

Price: 16 USD

Location: Prairie Village, Kansas

End Time: 2024-12-23T19:00:53.000Z

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