The Complete Songs Vols. 1-4
Malcom Martineau Piano
Singers
John Mark Ainsley (Lorna Anderson (Vol 1,2,3,4), Isobel Buchanan (Vol 3, 4), John Chest (Vol 1,2,3,4) Nigel Cliffe (Vol 1,2), Sarah Connolly (Vol 2,3,4), Iestyn Davies (Vol. 1,2,3,4), William Dazeley (Vol 3), Ben Johnson (Vol 1,2), Janis Kelly (Vol 1,2,3), Louise Kemeny (Vol 3), Ann Murray (Vol 1,2,3,4), Thomas Oliemans (Vol 2,3), Joan Rodgers (Vol 1), Kitty Whately (Vol 4)
Signum Classics SIGCD 427, 472, 483, 681
Full Price
The Review
Malcom Martineau has long been one of Britain’s best accompanists for singers and he is continuing a tradition of a lone pianist exploring the collected songs of a single composer with many collaborators, in the same way that Graham Johnson did with his Songmakers Almanac from the 1970s onwards.
Like Johnson, he has gathered around him a group of first rate singers – Ann Murray is common to both – and has assigned the songs among the voices for sense and variety, not necessarily convention. There were not many countertenors like Iestyn Davies singing Fauré songs at the turn of the nineteenth century, for example.
Martineau’s choices, recorded between 2013 and 2018, are mostly successful, though there are few whose French diction could be more idiomatic, particularly the baritones. Some are truly wonderful renderings, like Ann Murray’s of one of the most famous songs, Après un rêve or Lorna Anderson in Arpège. Anderson is joined by Janis Kelly in the two duet songs, Op. 10, in Vol. 2; the heart-felt Puisqu’ici-bas toute âme and the frenetic Tarantelle, a display of agility that shows both of them at their best. Anderson is also entrusted with the wordless vocalises that are sprinkled through the discs and her guileless virtuosity is a delight.
The single songs are spread around but the cycles or single opus groups are given to one singer. Murray gets (superbly) the Cinq Melodies de Venise and Joan Rodgers has Le Jardin Clos in Vol. 1. I have always loved Joan Rodgers’ voice and in these seven songs she is ideal; not too heavy nor thin but beautifully consistent in tone with just enough vibrato to give character without being intrusive. These are interpretations it is wonderful to have on record. Very much the same comments apply to Sarah Connolly’s stunning performance of the nine songs of La Chanson d’Eve in Vol. 2: just a joy to listen to and they capture the sense of endless yearning that pervades Fauré’s writing. There is none of the slightly detached wry smile that Ravel brings to the genre.
The only multi-song work in Vol. 3 is the late four piece Mirages, Op. 113, sung here by the American baritone, John Chest in 2014. Pronouncing French has plainly taken some hard work but in Mirages he manages better than in some of the single songs he has been assigned through the set. His is one of the younger voices and that freshness brings a an easy-going naturalness to the lines which works well. He reminds me of a young Thomas Hampson, which is not too shabby. He also has the even later set of L’horizon chimérique, Op. 118, in Vol.4. These were recorded in 2018, by which time Chest’s tone had filled out and been rounded to great effect. This is a mature performance for mature songs.
Kitty Whately recorded the set that is given pride of place in Vol. 4, La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61, six months later and she is enchanting. These settings of Verlaine from 1892 are both musically complex and deliciously optimistic love songs and Whately, like Rodgers once a young winner of the Kathleen Ferrier award, is a passionate advocate and a vocal match for Connolly on the previous discs.
Holding the whole panoply together is Martineau’s elegant and unobtrusive pianism, always supportive, underpinning the singers’ phrasing with attentive detail. It is a superb achievement, for Fauré’s piano parts are not simple and require rock-solid technique. The producer, Andrew Mellor, deserves huge credit too for the consistency and judgement of the balance between singer and instrument, as well as the programming of the songs that shows the full variation of timbres and styles through the four volumes. These are recitals for record, not just a chronological catalogue. And by the time one has read Roger Nichols’ notes, there is not much more that one needs to know about this extraordinary collection; four hours of sheer pleasure.
SM