Debussy: Apparition - song (1884)

Julie Fuchs, the 26-year-old soprano from Avignon, has just won a Victoire de la Musique Classique in the 'Lyrical Revelation of the Year' category, after being hailed a Classical Revelation by the perfomers’ rights society, ADAMI and carrying off the Gabriel Dessurget prize at the 2011 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Today, roles such as Susanna in 'Figaro' or Urgande in 'Amadis de Gaule' correspond perfectly to the quality of her voice, as did the title role in 'Acis et Galatée' which she took in July 2011 for the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Over the coming decade, that voice and that stage presence will see her moving towards weightier roles, with the title role of La Traviata beckoning. She’s at the start of a big career: one to watch.

Two leading French performers – soprano Natalie Dessay and pianist Philippe Cassard – come together in vocal works from the early career of Claude Debussy, whose 150th anniversary falls in 2012. Their recital includes four unpublished songs reflecting the young composer’s love for the soprano wife of one of his patrons. In Cassard’s words, Dessay informs these works with “her charisma as an actress, her energy, her temperament and her virtuosity, with its joyous sense of fun”.

Claude Debussy, whose 150th anniversary falls in 2012, signed his scores ‘musicien français’ in the final years of his life. Two leading French musicians of today collaborate on this disc of the composer’s songs – including a number of rarities – and his cantata, La damoiselle élue, based on the poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Philippe Cassard – whose impeccable Debussy credentials include performances of the composer’s complete piano works – wrote to Natalie Dessay after he had been deeply impressed by her interpretation of Mélisande, which can be seen on a Virgin Classics DVD of Pelléas et Mélisande (catalogue No 6961379). He suggested she would be perfect for a series of songs Debussy had composed around the age of 20.

As Cassard recounts: “At the time, Debussy was very much in love with Marie Vasnier, an older woman married to a man who helped Debussy at the beginning of his career. She was a light soprano and he composed some 40 songs for her, to poems by Bourget, Banville, Bouchor and Verlaine. They all reflect his feelings for Madame Vasnier.

“In 2010 I was shown a collection of Debussy manuscripts. Among them were four songs I had never heard of – and which the Debussy expert Denis Herlin confirmed were not officially documented. One of them, ‘Les Elfes’, to a poem by Leconte de Lisle, is, at 174 bars, the longest song Debussy ever wrote, and contains high vocalises, chord sequences taken from Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and melodic motifs showing the influence of Massenet and Delibes. Another, ‘Le matelot qui tombe à l'eau’, to a poem by Bouchor, is the shortest of all his songs, a dreamy little bubble of wit.”

Writing to Natalie Dessay after he had seen her Mélisande in Vienna, Cassard explained that “she would be the only person able to inhabit and embody these early Debussy songs … that her charisma as an actress, her energy, her temperament and her virtuosity, with its joyous sense of fun, would enable her to offer an interpretation that was different and really personal … something far away from a performing tradition that portrays preciosity, restrained intimacy and pseudo-Impressionism, which to me seems out of place in these works: they might be poetic, but they are also full of passion.”

Dessay had in fact sung many of Debussy’s songs in the past, and she was delighted to return to them as she and Cassard made a selection from repertoire which, as the pianist says, “shows Debussy trying out all sorts of genres, testing his ammunition and his discoveries.”

Describing the partnership with Dessay, Cassard says: “I’ve worked with many singers and this collaboration with Natalie Dessay gave me the privilege and joy of meeting an inspired, but humble artist with a perpetually questing spirit, always ready to question the text and the score. Her straightforwardness and integrity are rare in a professional world so obsessed with appearances. I am eternally grateful to her.”

A Lesson in Love tells the universal story of a love won and lost, and contains some beautiful and emotional German lieder, English and American songs and French mélodies.

Kate Royal’s first two orchestral discs for EMI have been critically acclaimed. Here she turns her attention towards a more intimate recital disc with piano.

A Lesson in Love charts the journey of a young girl’s relationship: from the first kiss and thrill of a blossoming love and initial intimacy through to the joy of a love fulfilled, to the disappointment and anger when the relationship breaks down - it ends with the girl’s acceptance and a cheeky sense of optimism about what her future love life might hold… Kate here creates her own unique song cycle, a thematic journey through the highs and lows of love, of young naivety lost and emotional maturity gained, feelings and experiences everyone can relate.

Kate leads us through her own personal choice of song, and her innate sense of drama and her passion for musical storytelling brings a fresh and youthful interpretation of the disc repertoire. A Lesson in Love contains a mixture of well-known songs as well as some surprising rarities, with a range of song styles and languages to appeal to a broad audience. She is joined by the most esteemed and respected accompanists, Malcolm Martineau.

This is a reissue of Donna Brown’s performances of beautiful songs by Debussy. They are settings of poems by Verlaine, Bourget, Banville, de Musset, Mallarmé and Peter. This soprano is known for the floating angelic quality of her voice and the intelligent musicality of her interpretations.

“In the works by Grieg, we wanted there to be unity in the language. So To brune ojne and Jeg elsker dig, by the Danish poet Andersen, are sung in Norwegian. The songs of Op. 48, settings of various German poems, were translated by the poet Nordahl Rolfsen, who was a close friend of Grieg’s. And I have chosen to sing his translations of the two German poems, by Goethe and von Bodenstedt: En drøm (Ein Traum) and I rosentiden (Zur Rosenzeit). They are usually sung in German. In Grieg there is no tragedy, but instead a gentle Nordic melancholy.

In Sibelius, on the other hand, nature is brutal and love is passionate. Never has the personification of nature been as present as it is in these songs. Here, everything evokes the end of winter and the gushing waters of spring (Marssno, Men min fagel), betrayal (Se n har jag, Flickan kom ifran), despair and weariness with life, conveyed by the image of a rose tree growing in the heart (Svarta rosor); I thought it was interesting to include the song En slanda, in which the music, rather than the poem itself, evokes a dragonfly, symbolising the pleasures of life which come to distract the mind of a person who is lost in thought. The idea of completing this recording with Debussy’s very sensual evocations of amorous desire expressed in the three Chansons de Bilitis came quite naturally. Apparition is for me one of Mallarmé’s finest poems, and in his setting Debussy conveys perfectly the ecstatic yet unsettling feelings caused by love at first sight.

We chose to end this recording with Beau Soir. This infinitely gentle song invites us to contemplate nature and the natural cycle of water and of human life.” Karen Vourc’h

Karen Vourc’h studies with Christa Ludwig. In 2010, she will be Annina in Menotti's Saint of Bleeker Street at the Opéra de Marseille, Musetta at the Opéra de Monaco, Mélisande at the Opéra Comique, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, and Vincenette (Mireille) at the Chorégies d' Orange. In March she shared the rôle of Emilie in Kaia Saariaho’s new opera, with Karita Mattila, to good reviews.