Notes and Editorial Reviews
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
3333250.az_VIERNE_Le_Eros_Ballade.html
VIERNE
Le djinns. Eros. Ballade du désespéré. Psyché.
CHAUSSON
Poème de l’amour et de la mer
•
Steve Davislim (ten); Guillaume Tourniaire, cond; Queensland O
•
MELBA 301123 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 76:32
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class="ARIAL12">Text and Translation)
Vierne’s orchestral songs are disc premieres—and therefore self-commending—while male voice traversals of Chausson’s
Poème de l’amour et de la mer
have been few and far between. One thinks back to a 1977 recital by baritone Bruno Laplante (Calliope 6860) and ahead to a 2007 collection from baritone Jean-François Lapointe (Analekta 29924), both of whom essayed it with piano accompaniment. That leaves the venerable Gérard Souzay’s classic account, with Edgard Doneux leading the Belgian Radio/TV Chamber Orchestra (Testament 1208). As Jacques Tchamkerten’s informative annotations tell, “These days
Poème de l’amour et de la mer
is usually performed by female singers, but it was written for a tenor voice, as the printed score expressly states.” Perhaps. My ancient, undated, pre-public domain Badoux vocal score states only “pour une voix (élevée) et orchestre,” while
The New Grove’
s works list remains noncommittal. The piano transcription, made in 1896, three years before the orchestral version, is Chausson’s. Tchamkerten’s conclusion—“This recording therefore restores the original version as the composer intended”—is questionable and beside the point. At issue is expressive power. And in that young Australian tenor Steve Davislim is certainly not lacking, bringing a measured pathos to Chausson’s representation of a seaside romance gone flat—the essentially light, bright voice evincing more darkly hued reserves for the shuddering realization of loss, but still the projection of a young adult, where Souzay’s caressing baritone and avuncular mien (accidents of circumstance) are more suggestive of Humbert Humbert.
The four Vierne songs are evenly divided between horror-show theatrics laid on in primary colors—whelming swarms of evil spirits in
Les djinns
, the insistent visitor revealed at last as Death in
Ballade du désespéré
—and the coy erotic charms suggested by their titles,
Eros
and
Psyché
. Where Franck’s
Les djinns
, for piano and orchestra, for instance, excuses him from facing Victor Hugo’s verse while providing chills and thrills aplenty, and Fauré’s choral setting affords deftly tongue-in-cheek excitement, Vierne takes it all quite seriously, skirting bathos in lurid depiction. The hovering tremulousness of
Eros
and
Psyché
, delicately spun out of the billowing chromatic swells of Franck’s
Psyché
ballet, leaves one in no doubt how precious close feminine companionship was to Vierne. Through them all, his post-Romantic lushness takes on a near-expressionist intensity—not for nothing the album title, “Turbulent Heart.” Complementing so much
affetuoso
orchestral writing, Melba’s surround affords a richly detailed, immediately balanced aural repletion, with Davislim (contrary to the usual highlighting), never covered but, well integrated with the superb Queensland Orchestra, led with aplomb by Guillaume Tourniaire. Melba’s production values are luxurious, with Tchamkerten’s annotations, biographies of Davislim and Tourniaire, a listing of the Queensland Orchestra personnel, and the poems in French, English, and German, on heavy, colorfully set-off stock, in eye-welcoming 11-point type, making a fat 99 page booklet, pasted into the cardboard sleeve—a palpable harbinger of the sumptuousness on disc. Splendid!
FANFARE: Adrian Corleonis
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Works on This Recording
1.
Les Djinns, Op. 35 by Louis Vierne
Performer:
Steve Davislim (Tenor)
Conductor:
Guillaume Tourniaire
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Queensland Orchestra
Period: 20th Century
Written: 1912
2.
Eros by Louis Vierne
Performer:
Steve Davislim (Tenor)
Conductor:
Guillaume Tourniaire
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Queensland Orchestra
Period: Romantic
3.
Ballade du désespéré, Op. 61 by Louis Vierne
Performer:
Steve Davislim (Tenor)
Conductor:
Guillaume Tourniaire
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Queensland Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1931
4.
Psyché, Op. 33 by Louis Vierne
Performer:
Steve Davislim (Tenor)
Conductor:
Guillaume Tourniaire
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Queensland Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1914
5.
Poème de l'amour et de la mer, Op. 19 by Ernest Chausson
Performer:
Steve Davislim (Tenor)
Conductor:
Guillaume Tourniaire
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Queensland Orchestra
Period: Romantic
Written: 1882-1890; France
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