Ravel - Songs - Hyperion: CDA67728 - CD or download

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It feels inadequate…just to describe this enchanting new collection from Gerald Finley and Julius Drake as the best modern recital devoted to the wonderfully varied world of Ravel's songs. Finley... — BBC Music Magazine, July 2009, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 1st Jun 2009
Catalogue No: CDA67728
Label: Hyperion
Length: 73 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

August 2009

Editor's Choice

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Ravel: Histoires naturelles (5)

Work length19:22

$5.00

$6.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

I. Le paon

Track length5:13

$1.00

$1.25

II. Le grillon

Track length3:32

$1.00

$1.25

III. Le cygne

Track length3:26

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Le martin-pêcheur

Track length3:31

$1.00

$1.25

V. La pintade

Track length3:40

$1.00

$1.25

Ravel: Ronsard à son âme

Work length2:52

$1.00

$1.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

Ravel: Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

Work length7:05

$3.00

$3.75

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

I. Chanson romanesque

Track length2:12

$1.00

$1.25

II. Chanson épique

Track length2:50

$1.00

$1.25

III. Chanson à boire

Track length2:03

$1.00

$1.25

Ravel: Un grand sommeil noir

Work length4:51

$1.00

$1.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

Ravel: Les grands vents venus d'outre-mer

Work length2:11

$1.00

$1.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

Ravel: Sur l'Herbe

Work length2:23

$1.00

$1.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

Ravel: Chants Populaires

Work length12:09

$4.00

$5.00

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

II. Chanson française

Track length2:10

$1.00

$1.25

III. Chanson italienne

Track length1:28

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Chanson hébraïque

Track length5:08

$1.00

$1.25

V. Chanson écossaise

Track length3:23

$1.00

$1.25

Ravel: Noël des jouets

Work length3:20

$1.00

$1.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

Ravel: Deux épigrammes de Clément Marot

Work length4:45

$2.00

$2.50

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

I. D'Anne qui m'a jecta de la neige

Track length2:54

$1.00

$1.25

II. D'Anne jouant de l'espinette

Track length1:51

$1.00

$1.25

Ravel: Cinq mélodies populaires grecques

Work length7:57

$5.00

$6.25

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

I. Le réveil de la mariée

Track length1:28

$1.00

$1.25

II. Là-bas, vers l'église

Track length1:43

$1.00

$1.25

III. Quel galant m'est comparable?

Track length0:58

$1.00

$1.25

IV. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques

Track length2:44

$1.00

$1.25

V. Tout gai!

Track length1:04

$1.00

$1.25

Ravel: Deux mélodies hébraïques

Work length6:15

$2.00

$2.50

Gerald Finley (baritone), Julius Drake (piano)

I. Kaddisch

Track length4:31

$1.00

$1.25

II. L'énigme éternelle

Track length1:44

$1.00

$1.25

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The award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake continue their musical explorations with this beautiful and thought-provoking disc. Gerald Finley’s lustrous tones, extraordinary gift for characterisation, and direct, unaffected utterance make him an ideal and revelatory performer of Ravel’s songs.

These works, somewhat under-appreciated in the composer’s oeuvre, demonstrate the endless variety and vast emotional scope of Ravel’s musical sphere. Charming folk-song settings contrast with the almost surrealist world of Histoires naturelles, which caused outrage at its first performance. Yet this cycle contains some of Ravel’s most dreamily beautiful music: the still, crystalline ‘music of silence’ created in Le martin-pêcheur. In the words of Roger Nichols, who provides the fascinating booklet notes, ‘From the sepulchral gloom of Un grand sommeil noir to the final exclamation ‘Je bois / À la joie’ …, Ravel’s songs embrace a whole world’.

Reviews

July 2009

It feels inadequate…just to describe this enchanting new collection from Gerald Finley and Julius Drake as the best modern recital devoted to the wonderfully varied world of Ravel's songs. Finley gives the melancholic affirmation of 'Kaddisch' its full weight of understated nobility, and is clearly having fun in the drinking song from Don Quichotte à Dulcinée.

2010

There is a vast gulf between the bibulous bravado of the 'Chanson à boire' that Ravel included in his Don Quichotte à Dulcinée songs and the bleak, dark despair of his Verlaine setting Un Grand sommeil noir. Placing them next to one another in this fine selection of over two dozen songs emphasises the broad expressive range that Ravel was able to embrace. It also throws into focus the way that Gerald Finley and Julius Drake can so evocatively tap their emotional substance.
These exquisitely crafted miniatures, whether in the folk-inspired Chants populaires and Cinqmélodies populaires grecques or in the tender Noëlsdes jouets to a text of Ravel's own, show his creative fastidiousness in a consistently positive light: the mood might be robust or rarefied, but Ravel's sense of colour and atmosphere is infallible.
The imagery of the Histoires naturelles, for example, testifies to Ravel's intuitive response to poetry and to his precise placing of the tonal brushstrokes. In this respect, the piano is an essential collaborator, etching in the background for the gliding grace of the swan or the chirping of the cricket.
Drake draws the ear ineluctably into Ravel's imaginative world, as he does elsewhere in the cool restraint of Ronsard à son âme or the turbulence and shifting currents of Les Grands Ventsvenus d'outremer. Finley's mellifluous, malleable baritone is similarly an ideal match for this repertoire, with lines eloquently floated, nuances subtly voiced and character sensitively defined.
This is a beguiling programme, beautifully performed.

August 2009

…the mood might be robust or rarefied, but Ravel's sense of colour and atmosphere is infallible. Drake draws the ear ineluctably into Ravel's imaginative world… Finley's mellifluous, malleable baritone is similarly an ideal match for this repertoire, with lines eloquently floated, nuances subtly voiced and character sensitively defined. This is a beguiling programme, beautifully performed.

28th June 2009

Finley sings with the art that conceals art — relishing but never overpointing the texts, and using a wide palette of dynamic and colour to underpin his musical insights. Other highlights are the inward-looking Ronsard à son âme, the passionate Les grands vents venus d’outremer and the lamenting Deux melodies hébraïques. A superb disc.

12th June 2009

Gerald Finley and Julius Drake's survey gathers all his major songs together. It's a beautiful disc that startles in ways you don't always expect.

10th June 2009

After acclaimed recordings of Barber, Ives and Schumann, baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake pull off another success with this disc of Ravel songs. These are for the most part works of cool restraint, with passion hidden beneath a jewelled surface, and Finley’s wonderfully flexible voice achieves maximum effect with minimal means.

Ravel - Songs

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