finale that is Schein’s Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, he can be relied on for an affecting tone quality and controlled ease of movement entirely in keeping with the music. Fellow countertenor Hugh Cutting joins him in the Schein, as also in Schütz’s Auf dem Gebirge, in which the harrowing image of Rachel weeping for her children is presented not through histrionic dissonance but by the sustained expressive intensity of the music and its performers. It’s a gem, one among several on this beautiful release. Lindsay Kemp

‘Phidylé’ Duparc Chanson triste. L’invitation au voyage. Phidylé. La vie antérieure Martinů Magic Nights, H119 Ravel Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques. Shéhérazade Szymanowski Penthesilea, Op 18 Kateřina Kněžíková sop Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Ostrava / Robert Jindra Supraphon F SU4296-2 (65’ • DDD • T/t)

Czech soprano Kate∑ina Kn∆Ωíková is clearly a singer to watch. She sang the title-role in Katya Kabanova at Glyndebourne earlier this summer and has now also released a glorious album of fin de siècle orchestral songs exploring the exotic and the erotic. It’s an outstanding showcase of her willowy, seductive voice and natural interpretative skill. The central works on the programme are familiar Ravel and Duparc, but we also have two rarities: Martin≤’s early Magic Nights (1918) and Szymanowski’s Penthesilea (1908).

The Martin≤ is some way from the composer’s mature style but it’s a gem. The three five-minute songs that make up Magic Nights set poems from the same source as Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. Delicate and dreamlike, with glittering celesta-lined textures, they are airier than Mahler’s songs, even if the central song, ‘Untouched by spring’, conveys a moving sense of melancholy.

Kn∆Ωíková is superb in them, always in full technical control but with a timbre that, enlivened by seductive vibrato, is ideally soft and warm. With sensuous support from Robert Jindra and the Janá∂ek Philharmonic Orchestra of Ostrava, it’s a performance that’s more yielding than the only other recording that seems to be available, from L’ubica Rybárska (with the Prague Symphony Orchestra under the late Ji∑í B∆lohlávek).

The soprano is no less successful in the French repertoire, her line always pliant, the voice beguiling and her French idiomatic. She conveys the languid erotic power of the four Duparc songs beautifully, and there’s plenty of life in Ravel’s Cinq Mélodies – listen to ‘Quel galant m’est comparable’, for example. There’s no resisting the charms of her Shéhérazade either, with wonderfully atmospheric support from orchestra and conductor: ‘Asie’ is shot through with a tangible sense of sensuous longing, ‘La flûte enchantée’ is properly languorous and ‘L’indifférent’ awash with dreamy desire.

Szymanowski’s brief Penthesilea is another meditation on desire, all winding counterpoint and post-Tristan harmonic uncertainty, and with a vocal line – rising slowly but distractedly – that Kn∆Ωíková’s controlled approach suits beautifully. It proves a fitting conclusion to an outstanding album. Highly recommended. Hugo Shirley

‘Passion’ ‘Un opéra imaginaire – An Imaginary Opera’ Charpentier Médée – Noires silles du Styx; Quel prix de mon amour Collasse Achille et Polyxène – Calme de déplaisirs. Thétis et Pélée – Tempête Desmarets Circé – Désirs, transports. La Diane de Fontainebleau – Choeur du sommeil Lully Alceste – La mort, la mort barbare; Pompe funèbre. Amadis – Prélude; Toi qui dans ce tombeau. Armide – Enfin, il est en ma puissance. Atys – Espoir si cher et si doux. Ballet de la naissance de Vénus – Sarabande Dieux des Enfers. Ballet du Temple de la paix – Entrée des Bretons. Le bourgeois gentilhomme – Canaries. Persée – Ouverture. Proserpine – Deuxième air; Ô malheureuse mère; Que tout se ressente de la fureur que je sens. Le triomphe de l’Amour – Air pour l’entrée de Borée et des quatre vents; Voici le favorable temps (Air de la nuit) Véronique Gens sop Les Chantres du Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles; Ensemble Les Surprises / Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas Alpha F ALPHA747 (57’ • DDD) Includes texts and translations

A couple of years ago, Alpha issued ‘L’opéra des opéras’ (4/19), a new pasticcio made up of airs and other pieces by 15 composers of the French Baroque. Now comes ‘Passion’ – an imaginary opera, which calls on just four: Lully, Charpentier, Desmarets and – omitted from the cover – Collasse. There are five ‘acts’, each with a title – ‘The Call of the Underworld’, ‘Cruel Love’ and so on – but it really doesn’t matter if, like me, you find it hard to discern a plot. Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas, the excellent conductor, has devised a clever sequence: note, for instance, how neatly Lully’s ‘Air de la nuit’ from Le triomphe de l’Amour moves into Desmarets’s ‘Choeur du sommeil’ from La Diane de Fontainebleau.

The note by Benoît Dratwicki, who planned the earlier disc, tells us that this recital is based on the repertoire of two singing actresses: Mlle Saint-Christophe (Christian name unknown), who joined the Opéra in 1675, and Marie Le Rochois, who succeeded her in 1683. He is silent, however, on the music. Lully accounts for 15 of the 21 tracks. Of the other three composers, Pascal Collasse is probably the least known. A former pupil of Lully, it was he who completed his master’s unfinished last opera, Achille et Polyxène. Juno’s air, ‘Calme tes déplaisirs’, leads straight into the splendidly vigorous storm from Thétis et Pélée, fast repeated notes in the orchestra provoking terror from the chorus. The air from Desmarets’s Circé, where Aeolia laments the supposed death of Ulysses, is a flowing chaconne that starts in the major and ends in the minor key. Charpentier is more familiar territory: the second number from Médée has the sorceress (not the chorus, as the booklet states) summoning a company of demons, sung with gusto by Les Chantres.

The excerpts by Lully range chronologically from a brief dance from Le bourgeois gentilhomme (1670) to a substantial air from Armide (1686). In the latter, Véronique Gens is competing with her younger self in the first of her three ‘Tragédiennes’ albums (Virgin/Erato, 8/06). If the older recording is more vivid, the reason lies in the powerful swelling of Christophe Rousset’s violins in the introduction. Here, as there, Gens is in thrilling voice. She has the knack – harder, surely, in miscellaneous pieces than in a complete opera – of instantly getting to the heart of a character. This is apparent from the first number, from Armide, where, abetted by solemn low oboes, the sorceress Arcabonne addresses her entombed brother. In an extended scene from Proserpine (tracks 8 and 9), Ceres laments the abduction of her daughter, then furiously commands her followers to burn the crops of which she is the goddess: Gens enacts all this vividly and powerfully.

The Ensemble Les Surprises provide variety with a few short orchestral pieces; a special word of praise for Juliette Guignard’s soulful gamba in Lully’s ‘Sarabande Dieux des Enfers’. Warmly recommended. Richard Lawrence

52 GRAMOPHONE 52 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2022

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