Poulenc: La Fraîcheur et le feu

The friendship between the poet Paul Éluard and the composer Francis Poulenc was more than just an artistic relationship. Éluard wrote to Poulenc, “It was first through your music that I really understood my poems”; and it was first through Éluard that Poulenc learned to express the deepest secrets of his personality. On this splendid new release in their Poulenc series, Holger Falk and Alessandro Zuppardo enable us to experience for ourselves the happy symbiosis formed by these two creative artists.

If anyone may lay claim to the title of prima donna assoluta of the late 20th century, it is surely Jessye Norman. She is one of the great communicators. Whether in the intimate setting of the Wigmore Hall in London, or the huge space of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, she can give each listener the sense that her song is directed straight at them. Jessye Norman was born in Augusta, Georgia, in 1945. She studied at Howard University, the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Michigan. In 1968 she won the Munich International Music Competition, and this led to an invitation to sing in Berlin at the Deutsche Oper, where she made her debut as Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser. After that her career blossomed and she went on to conquer the world’s greatest opera houses including La Scala in Milan and the Metropolitan in New York. One of her greatest triumphs in New York was in 1982, in Robert Wilson's Great Day in the Morning, and in 1989 she was invited to sing the Marseillaise for the 14 July celebrations in the Place de la Concorde.

The music on these CDs presents a cross-section of Jessye Norman's repertory, in German and French opera, in Lieder and mélodie, in oratorio and even operetta. Since Wagner's Tannhäuser provided Jessye Norman with her first stage role, it is appropriate to begin with two arias from that opera. Senta's ballad from Der fliegende Holländer tells the story of the Flying Dutchman, who is condemned to sail the seas for eternity unless he can find a woman who will remain faithful unto death. The Wesendonck- Lieder were composed by Wagner in 1857–8 as a tribute to Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of his friend Otto; particularly in 'Im Treibhaus' and 'Träume', they look forward to Tristan und Isolde. The three Schubert songs, and the solo from Brahms's German Requiem, bring the German part of the programme to a rapturous conclusion.

From Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann Jessye Norman sings the role of Giulietta, a Venetian courtesan, who ruins the hero, Hoffmann, by urging him to take part in a duel, and then in a symbolic gesture demands from him the ultimate sacrifice – the gift of his reflection. 'The face that launched a thousand ships' – Helen of Troy in La Belle Hélène – is another kind of temptress, and shows the full extent of Norman's comic gifts. In the song cycles by Ravel and Poulenc we glimpse a different side of the artist. La Fraîcheur et le feu was composed in 1950 for the baritone Pierre Bernac, Poulenc's greatest interpreter; in the 1960s, Bernac gave many master-classes covering the whole world of French song, and Jessye Norman was one of his students. The poems set are entitled Vue donne vie (‘Sight gives life'), but Poulenc asked the author, Paul Eluard, to give him a new title for the song-cycle. 'Unis la fraîcheur et le feu' is the opening line of the fifth song: 'Unite the coolness and the fire'. That is exactly what Jessye Norman has always done, and – in Bernac's words – she has done it with 'profound humanity'.

Composing over 150 works for piano and voice over a period of 44 years, the songs of Francis Poulenc remain consistently popular to concert audiences the world over. Varying in style and character in a way that defies generalisation, Poulenc set music to a wide range of different French poetry - both ancient and modern, and from the serious to the surreal.

This is the third release in Signum's that will build to encompass the complete songs of Francis Poulenc - performed by some of the greatest singers of the day and accompanied by the exceptional Malcolm Martineau.

This is the first release from promising young baritone Thomas Oliemans. This rising star, accompanied and supported by the always brilliant Malcolm Martineau, performs a selection of glorious French songs by Faure and Poulenc.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of his death, EMI Classics is releasing a set of Francis Poulenc complete works in 20 CDs.

Featuring the composer on the piano in the Concerto for two pianos, numerous artists who have worked with Poulenc himself such as Pierre Bernac, Jacques Février, Gabriel Tacchino, Georges Prêtre and so many others, this set also presents the vivid tradition of the Poulenc interpretation, including the first ever recording of Un Joueur de flute berce les ruines, by Emmanuel Pahud.

Legendary recordings of lyric works “Dialogues des Carmélites” with Régine Crespin under Pierre Dervaux, “Les Mamelles de Tirésias” and “La Voix humaine” with Denise Duval, come along to the multi award-winning and renowned complete piano works by Gabriel Tacchino. The chamber music cast features Alan Civil, Michel Portal, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Pierre Fournier and Michel Debost, to name but a few.

An extensive 148-page booklet including English and French liner notes describing each individual work, tributes by Denise Duval and Gabriel Tacchino, and a rich iconography will make this release even more unique.