Rossini, having composed no fewer than forty operas between the ages of nineteen and thirty-seven, wrote none in the next forty years. However these years were not barren of music. Rossini’s Soirées Musicales and Péchés de vieillesse or ‘Sins of old age’ were the musical fruits of salon evenings held weekly in his Parisian home. Elegant, witty, charming and often delicately ironic, these songs for various voices are the perfect exemplar of ‘salon music’, and of the unmistakable late style of a composer who had already become a legend in his lifetime. They are recorded here by three of the greatest singers of today: Stella Doufexis, who has appeared regularly in the Hyperion Schubert and Schumann songs editions; the wonderful Swedish soprano Miah Persson; and the American tenor and Rossini specialist Bruce Ford, all accompanied with characteristic brilliance and style by Roger Vignoles.
“With Roger Vignoles making much of Rossini's modest-looking piano parts, the three singers give virtually unalloyed pleasure. Bruce Ford, a seasoned Rossini stylist, excels in the melancholy La partenza and L'esule. Miah Persson is witty without archness in the infantile nonsense of La Chanson du bébé, while mezzo Stella Doufexis makes a spirited, sensuous Angelina ...as she gees on her gondolier lover in the delightful mini-song cycle La regata veneziana.” The Telegraph, 14th June 2008
“It is hard for any disc of Rossini’s Paris salon songs not to speed by in a wink of delight. And it’s impossible with Miah Persson’s bright soprano and the sensitive accompaniments of Roger Vignoles. The tenor Bruce Ford, so practised at trifles, isn’t far behind in glory. The mezzo Stella Doufexis occasionally thinks she’s singing opera, but the moments pass and we’re back with Rossini – never more charming than in the childish Chanson du bébé.” The Times, 30th May 2008 ****
“Doufexis is an attractive interpreter, duetting gorgeously with Persson in La Regata Veneziana, while Ford is sly and agile in La Danza. At the keyboard, Vignoles revels in the high jinks. Sheer delight.” Sunday Times, 3rd August 2008 ****
“The real start of the record is a pianist Roger Vignoles. Rossini's writing for the piano is highly idiosyncratic. It requires a first-rate technique, a sure sense of style and an ability to bring off with insouciance all manner of hair's breadth effects.” Gramophone Magazine, September 2008
“This is a classic case of 'spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar', as well as further evidence of Hyperion's uncharacteristically uncertain touch with Rossini. Having taken the trouble to engage three distinguished singers to record the Soirées musicales, they have drawn the line at employing a fourth, the bass required for the final duet 'Li marinari'. The disc cannot therefore be the 'library' recording of Les soirées we currently need. After the 11 numbers from Soiréesmusicales, we are given a further nine songs plucked somewhat randomly from the later Péchés de vieillesse.
That said, there is much to enjoy on the record. The ordering and voice allocation of Lessoirées is open to variation. The eight solo songs are generally sung by a soprano or a mezzo, 'La danza' by the tenor. Here the tenor has three of the songs. In 'La danza' memories of singers from Caruso to Pavarotti are perhaps a shade too insistent. Elsewhere in Les soirées, Bruce Ford shows every sign of shifting from opera to chanson with skill and imagination; the duet 'Les amants de Séville' from Péchés in which he partners mezzo Stella Doufexis is one of the disc's highlights. The two women barely put a foot wrong, though Miah Persson's Alpine shepherdess is preferable to her somewhat overindulged bébé. The real star of the record is pianist Roger Vignoles. Rossini's writing for the piano is highly idiosyncratic. It requires a firstrate technique, a sure sense of style and an ability to bring off with insouciance all manner of hair's-breadth effects. Vignoles has the measure of all this and more.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010
“There isn't a low point on the entire disc. Roger Vignoles plays with all his characteristic intelligence and subtlety. Miah Persson is enchanting in the opening La Promessa...Bruce Ford is technically brilliant and dramatically engaging in the drinking song, L'orgia, and smoothly leads the mood from light to darkness with L'esule, the first of the Péchés De Vieillesse.” Charlotte Gardner, bbc.co.uk, 24th June 2008
