Debussy: Fêtes galantes - Set 2

Jan Van der Crabben’s art has seduced the most demanding lovers of French melody. This is because, in the line of Bernard Kruysen or José Van Dam, he also has a rich experience as a soloist in baroque and classical music – namely with La Petite Bande and Sigiswald Kuijken – which nourished his musical thinking in a new and refined way. His previous CD with Fuga Libera (FUG510), devoted to Fauré, demanded a follow-up. It is Debussy, whom Van der Crabben serves today with his warm tone of voice, perfect style and pronunciation that we would have liked to submit to the ears and critical mind of Roland Barthes.

In this recital, covering thirty years of creation, dominated by Verlaine and the wonderful Fêtes galantes, the Belgian baritone is ideally accompanied by Inge Spinette, whose delicate colors equal the intelligence of the conception.

To many observers, no artist has ever replaced the great mezzo-soprano, Jan DeGaetani, as an interpreter of contemporary song. Writing of her, New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg called her “the finest song recitalist that the United States has ever produced.”

DeGaetani, with her magnificent duo-partner, Gilbert Kalish, performed together for thirty-years, the partnership ending with DeGaetani's death in 1989. This two-CD set gives us one of their final recitals together, and includes the wide-ranging repertoire that these two artists were known for.

This collection includes songs from pretty well the whole of Debussy’s composing life, some of them well-known and acknowledged masterpieces, and some of them much less familiar though no less worthy of inclusion. Most of them, though, date from the 1880s and early 90s. Nuit d'étoiles is in fact Debussy's first published composition, dating from 1880 when he was eighteen. The Trois Ballades de François Villon date from 1910.

Christopher Maltman sings them all with his now familiar stylishness and sensitivity to words.

All 40 CDs are mono