Ravel - The Complete Songs

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Label: Signum

Cat No: SIGCD870

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 18th April 2025

Artists

Lorna Anderson (soprano)
Sarah Dufresne (soprano)
Paula Murrihy (soprano)
Julie Boulianne (mezzo-soprano)
Dafydd Jones (tenor)
Nicky Spence (tenor)
John Chest (baritone)
Simon Keenlyside (baritone)
William Thomas (bass)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)
Lisa Friend (flute)
Anna Stokes (flute)
Julian Bliss (clarinet)
Matt Glendening (clarinet)
Cara Berridge (cello)
Sacconi Quartet

Works

Ravel, Maurice

Ballade de la reine morte d'aimer
Chanson du rouet
Chanson ecossaise
Chansons (3)
Chansons madecasses (3)
Chants populaires (4)
Don Quichotte a Dulcinee
Epigrammes (2) de Clement Marot
Histoires naturelles (5)
Les Grands Vents venus d'outre-mer
Manteau de fleurs
Melodies hebraiques (2)
Melodies populaires grecques (5)
Noel des jouets
Poemes (3) de Stephane Mallarme
Reves
Ronsard a son ame
Sainte
Sheherazade
Si morne!
Sur l'herbe
Tripatos
Un Grand Sommeil noir
Vocalise-etude en forme de Habanera

Artists

About

Malcolm Martineau follows up his acclaimed complete song collections of Duparc, Poulenc and Fauré with a double album celebrating the complete songs of Maurice Ravel, performed by a bumper roster of singers: Lorna Anderson, Julie Boulianne, John Chest, Sarah Dufresne, Dafydd Jones, Simon Keenlyside, Paula Murrihy, Nicky Spence and William Thomas.

French composer Maurice Ravel known for his musical craftsmanship and clear style drew on elements of baroque, neoclassicism, modernism and, later on, jazz in his compositions. His vocal works span four decades, from 1893 to 1933.

Scottish pianist Malcolm Martineau is recognised at the highest international level as one of the UK’s leading accompanists, performing worldwide alongside the world’s greatest singers and with a discography of over 100 albums, including a number of award-winning recordings.

Sound/Video

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1

Ballade de la reine morte d’aimer, M4
2

Un grand sommeil noir, M6
3

Sainte, M9
4

Epigrammes de Clément Marot: 1. D’Anne qui me jeta de la neige, M21
5

Epigrammes de Clément Marot: 2. D’Anne jouant de l’espinette, M10
6

Chanson du rouet, M15
7

Si morne !, M16
8

Manteau de fleurs, M39
9

Shéhérazade, M41: 1. Asie
10

Shéhérazade, M41: 2. La flûte enchantée
11

Shéhérazade, M41: 3. L’indifférent
12

Cinq Mélodies populaires grecs: 1. Le réveil de la mariée, M.A9
13

Cinq Mélodies populaires grecs: 2. Là-bas, vers l’église, M.A10
14

Cinq Mélodies populaires grecs: 3. Quel galant m’est comparable, M.A4
15

Cinq Mélodies populaires grecs: 4. Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques, M.A5
16

Cinq Mélodies populaires grecs: 5. Tout gai !, M.A11
17

Noël des jouets, M47
18

Histoires naturelles, M50: 1. Le Paon
19

Histoires naturelles, M50: 2. Le Grillon
20

Histoires naturelles, M50: 3. Le Cygne
21

Histoires naturelles, M50: 4. Le Martin-pêcheur
22

Histoires naturelles, M50: 5. La Pintade
23

Vocalise-Etude en forme de Habanera, M51
24

Les Grands Vents venus d’outre-mer, M48
25

Sur l’herbe, M53
26

Tripatos, M.A13
27

Chants populaires, M.A17: 1. Chanson espagnole
28

Chants populaires, M.A17: 2. Chanson française
29

Chants populaires, M.A17: 3. Chanson italienne
30

Chants populaires, M.A17: 4. Chanson hébraïque
31

Chants populaires, M.A17: 5. Chanson écossaise
32

Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, M64: 1. Soupir
33

Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, M64: 2. Placet futile
34

Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, M64: 3. Surgi de la croupe et du bond
35

Deux Mélodies hébraïques, M.A22: 1. Kaddisch
36

Deux Mélodies hébraïques, M.A22: 2. L’énigme éternelle
37

Trois Chansons, M69: 1. Nicolette
38

Trois Chansons, M69: 2. Trois beaux oiseaux du Paradis
39

Trois Chansons, M69: 3. Ronde
40

Ronsard à son âme, M75
41

Chansons madécasses, M78: 1. Nahandove
42

Chansons madécasses, M78: 2. Aoua !
43

Chansons madécasses, M78: 3. Il est doux
44

Rêves, M79
45

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, M84: 1. Chanson romanesque
46

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, M84: 2. Chanson épique
47

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, M84: 3. Chanson à boire

Europadisc Review

Among this year’s musical anniversaries, the sesquicentenary of the birth of Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) ranks high. The record companies have not been slow to respond: new and reissued recordings, particularly of the orchestral music and piano works, have been plentiful (just two weeks ago, Chandos issued a fine new survey of the complete solo piano music from Jean-Efflam Bavouzet). One under-explored corner of Ravel’s output is his songs: apart from such well-known cycles as Shéhérazade, the Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques, the Chansons madécasses and the late Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, few are frequently performed or recorded. This is a great shame, as his works in the genre span his whole career. While all are included in François-Xavier Poizat’s splendid six-disc set of ‘The Complete Works with Piano’, some might baulk at the outlay if it’s the songs alone they wish to investigate.

Step forward, then, pianist Malcolm Martineau, the mastermind behind complete recordings of the songs of Poulenc, Faure and Duparc on the Signum Classics label. Now he releases a double-album of Ravel’s complete songs to coincide with the composer’s anniversary year. Recorded at various locations in London and Suffolk between December 2018 and March 2024, Martineau partners an impressive roster of singers (as he had on those earlier Signum collections), including sopranos Lorna Anderson and Paula Murrihy, tenor Nicky Spence, and baritones John Chest and Simon Keenlyside. The songs are presented chronologically, starting with the Ballade de la Reine morte d’aimer (1893), composed while Ravel was still in his late teens but already showing a fine ear for texture and a penchant for clock-like figuration, and ending with the aforementioned Don Quichotte à Dulcinée of four decades later.

Ravel has a formidable reputation as one of music’s great colourists, with an astonishing range and command of sonorities, and in Martineau he has a perfect champion, realising the often orchestra-like textures with fabulous detail and finesse while never distracting from the singing itself. The singers, for their part, seem perfectly at home in Ravel’s distinctive, demanding yet endlessly rewarding idiom, even though most are not native French speakers. Paula Murrihy is radiant in the cycle of Tristan Klingsor poems Shéhérazade, combining ecstasy and sensuousness in the opening ‘Asie’; she and Martineau are joined most effectively by flautist Lisa Friend in the central ‘La flûte enchantée’. Simon Keenlyside is abundantly characterful in the charming animal-themed texts of the Histoires naturelles (1906), and Martineau matches him in the evocations of peacock, cricket, swan, kingfisher and guineafowl. In the pared-back soundscapes of the Deux Mélodies hébraïques (1914), Keenlyside shows an altogether more soulful side, the surface humour of ‘L’énigme éternelle’ darkly disturbing.

In the Don Quichotte settings, John Chest strikes just the right tone as soloist, raging from fun-loving and eccentric to world-weary (in the devotional ‘Chanson épique’). In the Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913), mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne is magically accompanied by pairs of flutes and oboes and the Sacconi Quartet plus Martineau to create some of the most sheerly ravishing sounds on the album. For the later Chansons madécasses (1925–26), she and Martineau are joined by Lisa Friend on flute and cellist Cara Berridge.

Other cycles are split between soloists, most winningly so in the beguiling soundworld of the Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques (1904–06), in which Nicky Spence and Lorna Anderson alternate, the latter spellbinding in the fourth song, ‘Chanson des cueilleuses de lentisques’ – one of the highlights of the album as a whole. There are some peculiarities of balance in the five Chants populaires of 1910 (shared between four singers), and in Spence’s account of the standalone Verlaine setting Sur l’herbe, where he is placed very distantly compared with the piano. But these glitches are not enough to detract from the many positives, especially in the many rarely-heard single items. Bass William Thomas is magnificently lugubrious in Un Grand Sommeil noir (1895, written after Ravel was expelled from the Paris Conservatoire after failing his harmony exam). Pure-toned soprano Sarah Dufresne is enchanting in the Chanson du rouet (1898) and in the sparkling Manteau des fleurs (1903), and disarmingly affecting in Tripatos (1909), composed after the death of Ravel’s father. Spence’s voice takes on a baritonal hue at the lower end of its vast range in Si morne! (1898) and he is an engaging narrator amid the clockwork figuration of Noël des jouets (1905), while fellow tenor Dafydd Jones does the honours in the unsettling Les Grands Vents venus d’outre-mer (1907) and in the spare, simple textures of Ronsard à son âme (1923–24).

Whatever the setting, Ravel’s music is unmatched in its evocative powers, most famously in the wordless Vocalise-Etude en forme de Habanera (1907), sung with sultry smokiness by Julie Boulianne. Try plunging into these discs at random and you will find endless delights, brilliantly conveyed by Martineau and his colleagues. There are compact notes on the music by Richard Stokes, organised – like the album – as a chronological timeline, allowing one to follow Ravel on a remarkable musical journey. Full texts and translations are included (although marginal track indicators would have been helpful), and this latest collection of French song from Martineau and Signum is a splendid – one is tempted to say essential – contribution to Ravel Year.

Reviews

Martineau is partnered by a lineup of mostly British singers, who tackle the songs as if determined to demonstrate that this repertoire should never be seen as the exclusive preserve of Francophone artists. ... soprano Paula Murrihy brings a real sultry intensity to Shéhérazade, and baritone Simon Keenlyside finds precisely the right light touch for the epigrammatic Histoires Naturelles, while the mezzo Julie Boulianne proves more convincing in the Mallarmé settings than she is in Chansons Madécasses, perhaps the greatest of all Ravel’s vocal works. Andrew Clements

The Guardian 11 April 2025

There’s some excellent singing. Lorna Anderson, poised and lyrical, does wonders with the Trois Chansons of 1915, in which bitter humour gives way to intimations of absence and loss in the First World War. Sarah Dufresne sounds exquisite, above all in ‘Ballade de la Reine morte d’aimer’, where breathtaking high pianissimos signal the moment when the Queen’s soul leaves her body. Nicky Spence captures the discreet erotic wit of the Clément Marot Epigrammes and sings the depressive ‘Si morne!’ with restrained intensity. ... Martineau, as one might expect, is the most wonderfully accomplished guide through musical and emotional landscapes in which the piano, more often than not, carries equal weight with the voice, deploying a vast range of dynamics and colour that encompasses everything from the filigree whole-tone tracery of ‘Manteau de fleurs’ to the shifting oriental textures of Shéhérazade. ... It’s a fine set, all in all, more than well worth hearing. Tim Ashley

Gramophone May 2025

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Ravel - The Complete Songs

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Despatch Information

Contents

Works

Artists

Works

Artists

About

Sound/Video

Paused

Europadisc Review

Reviews