French Lieder?

[Diletante]

Hello there.

I am pretty much new to Lieder, so forgive my ignorance. I've just listened to some beautiful Lieder by Schubert and Mahler.

My question is, are there French Lieder? Any recommendations?

[The new erato]

They call it chanson or melodie: Debussy, Faure, Chabrier, Poulenc, and Duparc offer a good start. I will always be partial to the recordings by Gerard Souzay.'

The Brilliant box reissue of EMIs Faure with Ameling and Souzay are a fine place to start (provided there's texts in it - I have the original EMI).

[Diletante]

Gee, I'll check out those Souzay recordings you both mentioned. Thanks.

[Gabriel]

I am very fond of Massenet's songs, but I think they have not been widely recorded. Both Poème d'octobre and Poème d'avril are stupendous, exquisite song cycles. I have them on an out of print Arion CD, sung by Bernard Kruysen and with Noël Lee at the piano.

[sul G]

Some of Ravel's songs are simply marvelous - something like the Noel des jouets, for instance, contains pretty much everything that makes Ravel; in some respects it is the Ravel piece to end them all! Ronsard a son ame is another mini-masterpiece (its piano part is mostly for one hand, and Ravel said it was his favourite song because he could play it and hold a cigarette at the same time). The Epigrams of Clement Marot are great too. Perhaps his song masterpiece, however, are the Histoires naturelles - great Ravel, pure and simple, one of his finest and most important works.

And a slightly left-field suggestion - there are three early songs by Satie (the Rosicrucian Satie rule of three applies here, as in the Gymnopedies, the Sarabandes, the Pieces Froides etc) which are absolutely crystalline in their beauty. Simply: exquisite, slow chords, and poised, ineffable melodies of the greatest beauty. I always think these songs are what you'd get if you took a distillation of the best of the songs of Faure, Debussy, Ravel... The recording to get is that of Marjanne Kweksilber contained on the third disc of this set:



a set which, I might add, is IMO the finest Satie recording around. Absolutely indispensable.

[DavidRoss]

and

[Diletante]

Ronsard a son ame is another mini-masterpiece (its piano part is mostly for one hand, and Ravel said it was his favourite song because he could play it and hold a cigarette at the same time).

So that's the real reason he wrote a piano concerto for the left hand!

[knight66]

Here is a great disc that I thoroughly recommend.

La Procession:



One song from each of 21 composers, all in chronological order. It might sound like it would be bitty; but it makes a satisfying whole with the songs well chosen to provide contrasts and little groups of songs that sound like mini-collections.

Stephen Varcoe's delivery is flowing and idiomatic. He has a lovely nut brown voice. Graham Johnson is the pianist and also the likely architect of the programme.

Mike