Massenet: Nuit d'Espagne

“It all began with Berlioz' Nuits d’été. The first time I sang this cycle I was struck by the power yet gentleness that these pieces emanate. Berlioz originally composed his work for voice and piano and I decided to champion that version for the fine chamber relationship it permits. We have aimed to convey all the intimacy of these songs, attempting extreme dynamics, passages almost in recitative, while retaining the lyricism of Berlioz's work. The next step was to find more treasures with a similar nocturnal setting. So Johanne Ralambondrainy and I, who have long been accomplices, went through the collections, discovering or rediscovering songs that appealed to us, then whittling those down to the ones we felt were absolutely essential. In some cases we have taken the liberty of removing mélodies from the cycle to which they normally belong. We have thus brought together composers we love and mélodies we find exciting and original… Finally, I asked Christian Pageault, an actor I particularly appreciate for his precision and dramatic intensity, to join me as narrator, reciting some parts of the poems. The texts you will hear were with me constantly as an inspiration throughout the conception and realisation of this project.” Isabelle Druet

Unsurprisingly, it is in the music of the Baroque era – the heyday of the castrato – that French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky has captured the attention of music-lovers lovers around the world. The ethereal, but sensuous beauty of his voice, his virtuosity and his sense of style have brought him critical praise, a number of major awards – including, in 2008, Germany’s prestigious Echo-Klassik prize for Male Singer of the Year, honouring his Virgin Classics album, Carestini: The Story of a Castrato – and impressive sales: more than 120,000 copies of his Vivaldi album Heroes and 90,000 of the Carestini release.

Jaroussky enters new territory with this programme of French songs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries – well over a hundred years after the end of the Baroque era. Taking its name, Opium, from a song by Saint-Saëns, it evokes the voluptuous, sometimes decadent spirit of the Belle Époque, the era of transition between Romanticism and Modernism. The programme includes a number of rarities by composers such as Dukas, Caplet, and Chaminade, as well as better-known numbers by figures like Fauré, Chausson and Hahn.

“Many people will probably wonder why a counter tenor should sing these songs,” says Jaroussky, “but if you think about it, the countertenor voice as such has no repertoire of its own, except the modern music written specifically for it. For the most part we sing music written for castratos who – as we know – had very different voices from ours. So why not venture into other musical worlds if we feel they are suited to our voices? … There has been David Daniels in Schubert, Max Emmanuel Cencic in Rossini, and even Andreas Scholl and Gérard Lesne in pop music.

“I’ve always felt a special affinity for French song, which was an area of focus in the early days of my studies with my teacher, Nicole Fallien. It was Renaud Capuçon -- whom I want to thank, along with Gautier Capuçon and Emmanuel Pahud for his valuable contribution to this disc -- who first had the idea of inviting me to sing Hahn, Chausson, Fauré in a recital. It was then that I met the pianist Jérôme Ducros, and we decided to work further on this rich and well-stocked repertoire, which contains some real undiscovered treasures. There is no theme to this album, but I wanted to record songs which have captured my heart and which suit my voice. Perhaps I can show them in a new light too.”

French song demands an acute sense of language and style, and today there are relatively few singers --- even native Francophones – who succeed in capturing its elusive magic. “I’ve decided to pronounce the texts in a way that is as close as possible to the spoken word – I don’t roll the ‘r’, for example,” continues Jaroussky. “The poetry should come to life without the imposition of too much interpretation or emotional contrivance. I’ve tried to approach it with humility.”

"Philippe Jaroussky is one of the best countertenors around. His voice is mellow, evenly toned, wide-ranging and largely free from intrusive mannerism and vocal strain” BBC Music Magazine, February 2007

This is a very important album which will be widely greeted by lovers of the Spanish Guitar. Tárrega was in many respects the founder of the modern Spaniosh Guitar movement, in that he not only was of the greatest importance in introducing a new style of guitar playing, but also the instrument on which it should be played. Before his death in 1909, Tarrega wrote and arranged much music for the guitar, and we have on this record a unique selection, embracing his own compositions as well as several of his best-known transcriptions. The Swiss guitarist Michael Erni is one of the finest currently before the public, and the recording quality is virtually state of the art. This is one of the very few CDs entirely devoted to Tárrega.

13 August 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Jules Massenet (born 12 May 1842).

Massenet is best-known for his operas and this set contains his two most famous - Manon and Werther as well as rarer works which owe their modern revivals and recordings during the 1970s to the advocacy of Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge.

Richard Bonynge has been a lifelong champion of Massenet and his reference-status recordings of the ballets are included as an integral element in this edition. He also features as an accompanist to Huguette Tourangeau in a widely-admired but long out of print recording of a selection of Massenet Songs.

The 140-page booklet includes full cast lists of the operas and detailed track lists.

Opera critic and writer George Hall has written an article on Massenet's life and works.

Richard Bonynge also contributes a personal note on his discovery and love of Massenet's music.

A CD-ROM contains the opera libretti and song-texts with translations.

This comprehensive 23-CD set with a wealth of glorious music is a must for all Massenet fans and lovers of French music alike.