Joyce DiDonato: The complete "Cinq Mélodies "de Venise" Op. 58" (Fauré)
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Cinq Mélodies "de Venise" (Op. 58):
I. Mandoline 00:00
II. En sourdine 01:55
III. Green 05:31
IV. À Clymène 07:23
V. C'est l'extase 10:42
Fauré, Gabriel (1845-1924) -composer
Joyce DiDonato -mezzosoprano
Julius Drake -piano
Score: conquest.imslp.info/files/imgl...
Playlist "The art of French song: Faure, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, Satie...": • The art of French song...
"The fact of the matter is that I'm having an excellent holiday, feeling better than I have ever felt before, and filling my eyes with marvelous things and my mind with delightful memories! I certainly lack the peace and quiet I need for work, and the little something I've sketched out to some lines by Verlaine may possibly turn out well once I am back at my desk in Paris. ... " Fauré wrote this to his confidante, Marguerite Baugnies, from Venice in June 1891. In fact, Mandoline was finished and En Sourdine nearly complete; back in Paris, finishing touches were put to the latter, Green followed in July, A Clymène came over July and August, and C'est l'extase over August and September. The Cinq Mélodies "de Venise," to poems by Verlaine, are dedicated to Mme la Princesse Edmond de Polignac, Fauré's hostess during his Venetian stay between mid-May and mid-July -- a time of renewal snatched from the grind of daily duties and career building.
The Princesse de Polignac (1865-1943), née Winnaretta Eugénie Singer, heiress to the sewing machine fortune, was not merely a wealthy woman who commissioned such central modern works as Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante défunte, Satie's Socrate, Stravinsky's Renard, de Falla's El Retablo de Maese Pedro, Weill's Symphony No. 2, and Poulenc's Organ Concerto; she was also an animatrice -- one who moves and inspires others. Fauré's junior by 20 years, in 1891 she was an attractive and astute woman in her mid-twenties, and Fauré was infatuated with her. His initial Verlaine settings -- Clair de lune in 1887 and Spleen ("Il pleure dans mon coeur") the year following -- persuaded her that he was Verlaine's ideal interpreter and, both before and after their Venetian excursion, she pressed for a collaboration. Sadly, Verlaine had already become the absinthe-besotted débauché of legend and Fauré's several visits to him in the hospital resulted only in the wily poet extracting 100 francs at a time from the composer. Fauré played the organ at Verlaine's funeral in 1896. Meanwhile, the prospect of collaboration had sent Fauré back to the poems -- with startling consequences.
The Cinq Mélodies form a genuine cycle -- Fauré's first -- in which themes from previous mélodies return subtly varied. The Watteau paysage evoked by the piano's staccato in Mandoline becomes the scene for four very different expressions of love -- a dreamlike incantation in En Sourdine, shyly effusive in Green (as the lover offers the beloved fruit and flowers), an apparition of the beloved presaged by "Mystiques barcarolles, / Romances sans paroles. ... " in A Clymène, before the passionate sensuality of C'est l'extase clinches all. In this "Venetian" music, Fauré's art opens to a new opulence, a passionately crooning lyricism sublimated by musical cunning of a rare order, suffused with incandescent exhilaration.
Though no doubt heard in the salons well before, the Cinq Mélodies "de Venise" were given their premiere by Proust's friend, the tenor Maurice Bagès, at a Société Nationale concert of April 2, 1892.
Source: www.allmusic.com/composition/c...
Buy the CD here: www.amazon.com/Joyce-DiDonato-...
These lovely performances by Joyce DiDonato make me rejoice!
Brava, I love her voice...
Wonderful! These interpretations are at once sensuous and as elegant as could be. Excellent diction, too. Bravissimi to singer and pianist alike!!!!
Wonderful. Didn't know anyone did this anymore. Brilliant interpretation and charming voice. Thank you.
Maravilhosa!!!!
Thank you!!!
Such a nice recording of this beautiful music! Thank you!
Thank you!
1:56 En sourdine
love it !
Ich beneide die Menschen, die Französisch sprechen und verstehen kann!
First of all, I much prefer a lower voice in this song so that it isn't "blatant" in any way, something which would betray both the poetry and the music. That being said, I wish
that Joyce would not straighten out her voice in "En sourdine", as if she were afraid of
singing too much. In fact, throughout most of this song, she doses too little sonority
for "En sourdine" which is intended to be "muted" but not without resonance. Is this the
opera singer trying to sing a "melodie" with a pared down voice to the point that it sounds
rather "amateur" which we know it is not. In "Green", she confuses "diction" with a good
legato, both of which are synonymous. Who is her excellent pianist, by the way? His name is nowhere on the record jacket or here.
Her pianist is Julius Drake, as listed just below the song timings in the description above. Personally, I am addicted to Elly Ameling's Fauré.
@@AldenHardaway Like you, I very much like and admire Elly Ameling's performances of French mélodies. But I would add that my supreme idol in this repertoire remains, and has always been, Gérard Souzay (who has, alas, recently left us).