GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018

Quibbles? Well, Schumann’s homely duet ‘So wahr die Sonne scheinet’ is too reverential for my taste. And both singers could have sometimes given their German consonants more bite without compromising the line. But this is nitpicking. Here is a captivating, unhackneyed programme, presented by singers – a double act in a thousand – and pianist with a style and allure it would be hard to beat. No one remotely drawn to this repertoire should hold back. Richard Wigmore

‘Secrets’ Debussy Trois Chansons de Bilitis. Trois Mélodies de Verlaine Duparc Quatre Mélodies Fauré Mirages Ravel Shéhérazadea. Vocalise en forme de habanera Say Gezi Park 3 Marianne Crebassa mez Fazıl Say pf a Bernhard Krabatsch fl Erato F 9029 57689-7 (69’ • DDD • T/t)

Marianne Crebassa’s French song album surveys the fin de siècle mélodie from

Duparc to late Fauré, placing the emphasis on settings of Symbolist poetry and the power of music either to unlock or to encapsulate its ‘secrets’ (whence the title). With her warm tone and often remarkable way with both vocal colour and verbal inflection, Crebassa is outstanding in this repertory, and in Fazıl Say she has an accompanist whose direct yet subtle approach matches her own.

Trois Chansons de Bilitis, with which they open, gets one of its sexiest performances on disc, with Crebassa wonderful in her judgement of the thin dividing line between sensuality and naivety. The outer songs of the Trois Mélodies de Verlaine have an exuberant sweep, though time seems to stand still in the central ‘Le son du cor s’afflige vers les bois’, with its suggestion of distant sounds echoing across a desiccated landscape. One false move in Fauré’s Mirages, meanwhile, and the cycle can seem overwrought, though the performance here is a model of restraint: Crebassa gently teases out the nuances in Renée de Brimont’s rather self-conscious text; Say does extraordinary things with the ceaselessly shifting accompaniments.

There are a couple of surprises along the way, however. First of all, Shéhérazade comes with piano – not for the first time on disc, though in this instance a solo flute is added for the second song. Crebassa projects text and line with just the right combination of elegance and insinuation, but the piano-writing, particularly in ‘Asie’, sounds altogether more menacing and aggressive than the more familiar orchestral version – a reminder, perhaps, that Ravel’s Orient is as dangerous as it is attractive.

Second, the final track is Say’s own Gezi Park 3, of which Crebassa is the dedicatee, the last in a trilogy of works composed in response to the brutal suppression of protests against the proposed urbanisation of Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park by the authorities in 2013. An unsparing wordless lament, it draws on traditional Turkish music and takes Crebassa almost to her limits with leaps between soaring high lyricism and guttural phrases low in her voice. Say’s piano-writing, initially Debussian, turns jagged and increasingly angry at the climax.

Some might question its inclusion; but we are to some extent prepared for its emotional landscape by the unusual Duparc group that immediately precedes it – four bleak songs about absence and loss, during which the mood perceptibly darkens. Crebassa brings operatic weight to ‘Élégie’ with its echoes of Tristan, and the Gothic frissons of ‘Au pays où se fait la guerre’ add to the prevailing sense of anguish. Here, as throughout, the combination of intelligence, immediacy and subtlety is utterly compelling and marks ‘Secrets’ out as one of the finest French song recitals of recent years. I cannot recommend it too highly. Tim Ashley (12/17)

‘Voyages’ Bréville Harmonie du soir Chabrier L’invitation au voyage Debussy Cinq Poèmes de Baudelaire Duparc L’invitation au voyage. Romance de Mignon. La vie antérieure Fauré Chant d’automne, Op 5 No 1. Hymne, Op 7 No 2 Rollinat Harmonie du soir. Le jet d’eau Schubert Mignon, ‘Kennst du das Land’, D321. Vier Gesänge aus ‘Wilhelm Meister’, D877 – No 2, Heiss mich nicht reden; No 3, So lasst mich scheinen; No 4, Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Séverac Les hiboux Mary Bevan sop Joseph Middleton pf Signum F SIGCD509 (80’ • DDD • T/t)

Baudelaire’s ‘L’invitation au voyage’ and Goethe’s ‘Kennst du das Land’

are the starting points for Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton’s ‘Voyages’, a beautiful, ambitious, if curiously programmed recital that explores, among other things, the power of the mind to take us on imaginary journeys that mirror both our deepest desires and the darker corners of our psyches. Both poems express a comparable yearning for a life beyond the here and now, though the decadent city to which Baudelaire transgressively wishes to take ‘my child, my sister’ is far removed from the prelapsarian world from which Goethe’s Mignon has been traumatically wrenched and to which she longs to return.

The immediate musical link is Duparc, whose settings effectively dictate the disc’s structure. His ‘L’invitation au voyage’ establishes the parameters at the outset, while ‘Romance de Mignon’ prefaces Schubert’s Mignon Lieder towards the centre, flanked by further Baudelaire settings, familiar or otherwise. Fauré’s ‘Chant d’automne’, dating from 1870, is a great song – brooding, fierce, harmonically complex – while ‘Hymne’, written the same year, is more conservative and cautious. Déodat de Séverac strikingly links Baudelaire to Schubert by modelling ‘Les hiboux’ on ‘Der Leiermann’ from Winterreise. Debussy and Maurice Rollinat, meanwhile, are at opposite poles in their approaches: Debussy’s Cinq Poèmes are all erotic turbulence and tristesse; cabaret composer Rollinat is knowingly urbane and quietly ironic. It’s never less than fascinating, but doesn’t quite hang together: the preponderance of Baudelaire over Goethe results in the Schubert feeling like a digression at the disc’s centre.

This is no reflection on the performances, however, which are often superb. Bevan’s purity of tone and discreet yet telling way with words can be by turns unnerving and alluring in the Baudelaire settings. Debussy’s Cinq Poèmes have real drama, as rapture turns to regret and pleasure itself becomes itself a torment. She generates tremendous intensity in ‘Chant d’automne’, and the exquisite way she floats the high-lying refrains of Rollinat’s ‘Le jet d’eau’ is simply breathtaking. She’s a fine Mignon, too, sensual in Duparc’s ‘Romance’ – he uses a translation from which Goethe’s darker imagery has been excised – more introverted in the Schubert, where the longed-for other world is perceived, at times, as being beyond the grave. Middleton, as one might expect, is marvellously insightful, playing throughout with weight as well as grace and subtlety. The disc might lack the unity that characterises the finest recitals but it’s all most beautifully done. Tim Ashley (1/18)

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