Fauré: La rose Op. 51 No. 4

Another favourite of the Salzburg public was the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, who besides her Cherubino in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro also enjoyed repeated successes in Salzburg with her song recitals. In 1986, accompanied by Martin Katz, she offered a programme that knew no boundaries – ranging from the florid poesy of settings by Fauré and Strauss to Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer, the moderate American Modernism of Charles Ives, Copland and Pasatieri, then to Canteloube’s French folk song adaptations. Schoenberg’s early cabaret songs served to round off the evening in ebullient fashion.

“A little more than ten years ago I discovered the late works of Gabriel Fauré, and particularly the sumptuous cycle La Chanson d’Ève. A decade later, I still traverse with the same pleasure the intensely expressive luxuriance of these songs and their exhilarating harmonic density. La Chanson d’Ève, like Le Jardin clos and the other songs we wished to include in this recording, expresses an extreme refinement capable of going straight to the heart of the matter, sometimes with a disarming simplicity, but invariably underpinned by a flawless structure. They are among the works to which I feel very close today, at once nourished by them and inspired by the urge to share the profound enjoyment they give me. After ten years of complicity with the pianist Hélène Lucas, the time has come to invest our pleasure, our enthusiasm and the end result of all our hard work in a disc which is both a challenge and, above all, an immense source of delight for us.” Karine Deshayes