Graham Johnson

'This is the most resounding blow yet to be struck for the mélodies of Saint-Saëns … Le Roux is one of the most charismatic performers of our time … this is certainly one of the best things he has done so far. A double welcome for performers and rare repertory' (Gramophone)

“This is the most resounding blow yet to be struck for the mélodies of Saint-Saëns. François Le Roux, with his incisive diction and ability to characterise each song, is a real champion for the man, once so successful, who became, as Graham Johnson puts it in the booklet, 'a footnote' rather than a chapter in the history of French music.
Many of the poems that Saint-Saëns set were used by other composers, for instance Dans toncoeur, which became Duparc's Chanson triste, by 'Jean Lahor' (Henri Cazalis). The first song of the Mélodies persanes, 'La brise', is full of eastern promise, the second, 'Sabre en main' a rollicking bit of toy-soldier galloping away, but just as you're beginning to think that Johnson is shooting himself in the foot by being so ironic about the music they're performing comes the hauntingly beautiful fifth song, 'Au cimetière', with its quietly rippling accompaniment and the languorous poem about the lovers sitting on a marble tomb and picking the flowers. Le Roux sings this with controlled, quiet intensity.
Johnson makes the point that it's of little importance from which part of the composer's life the songs come, he embodies that totally French 19th-century style, sometimes anticipating Hahn and Massenet, sometimes harking back to Boieldieu. If a setting of La Fontaine's fable about the cicada and the ant is pure salon charm, then the final 'Grasselette et Maigrelette' Ronsard chanson, composed when Saint- Saëns was 85 in 1920, is a vivacious café-concertstyle evocation of old Paris.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“The interpretation of Schubert's Lieder comes no better than this..." Gramophone

“The interpretation of Schubert's Lieder comes no better than this, a recital taken from three different broadcast sources, catching Dame Janet at the absolute peak of her powers. Most of the songs are by poets who moved the composer to his most noble inspiration. As several Schubert specialists have commented, for each he reserved a particular style, in response to their very different manner, and Baker catches the precise meaning of each.
Of the Schiller settings, the operatic expression of Amalia and the dreamy rapture of the praise of Laura (here the singer achieves one miraculous pianissimo effect) are perfectly caught. Best of all is that wonderful song, Die Götter Griechenlands, where longing is so movingly expressed. All seven Mayrhofer settings find Baker truly at one with the poet's high-minded self-communing on the meaning of life, and with his underlying fatalism.
Most notable are the calm assurance and serenity she brings to Der Sieg, the resigned isolation found in Abendstern, and the holy fire of Auflösung, the last two masterpieces that the singer did so much to make popular.
As Gerald Moore once pointed out, Baker liked the stimulus of the different ideas she received from different pianists. Here Isepp, Parsons and the young Graham Johnson provide just that, completing pleasure in a recital that goes to the heart of the chosen material: as ever one realises that Baker was, above all, a singer of conviction. The absence of any texts or translations is the only blot on a superb issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“Bostridge is in the royal line of Britten's tenor interpreters. Indeed his imaginative response to words and music may come closer than any to Pears himself. He's heard here in a veritable cornucopia of mostly unfamiliar and unknown songs (the Donne cycle apart), mainly from the earliest period of Britten's song-writing career when his inspiration was perhaps at its most free and spontaneous. The three settings from Ronald Duncan's This way to the Tomb nicely match that poet's florid, vocabulary-rich style as Britten was to do again two years later in Lucretia, with 'Night', based on a B-minor ground bass, a particularly arresting piece. The Auden settings, roughly contemporaneous with On this Island, all reflect Britten's empathy with the poet at that time. The third, To lie flat on the back, evinces Britten's gift for writing in racy mode, as does When you're feeling like expressing your affection, very much in the style of Cabaret Songs. Much deeper emotions are stirred by the two superb Beddoes settings (Wild with passion and If thouwilt ease thine heart), written when the composer and Pears were on a ship returning home in 1942. The red cockatoo itself is an early setting of Waley to whom Britten returned in Songs fromthe Chinese. All these revelatory songs are performed with full understanding and innate beauty by Bostridge and Johnson, who obviously have a close artistic rapport. The Donne Sonnets are as demanding on singer and pianist as anything Britten wrote, hence their previously small representation in the catalogue. Both artists pierce to the core of these electrifying songs, written after, and affected by, Britten's visit to Belsen with Menuhin in 1945. The recording catches the immediacy of these riveting performances. A richly satisfying issue.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010