COMPOSERS: Canteloube
LABELS: Naxos
ALBUM TITLE: Songs of the Auvergne
WORKS: Chants d'Auvergne (excerpts)
PERFORMER: Véronique GensOrchestra National de LilleJean Claude Casadesus
CATALOGUE NO: 8.557491
The only one of Canteloube’s works
to be regularly recorded, the Songs
of the Auvergne certainly do not lack
representation in the catalogue.
Arranged between 1923 and 1955 in a
lush idiom that occasionally possesses
a post-Massenet glamour, they lie at
the other extreme from, say, Bartók’s
punchier recreations of the folk music
of his native Hungary. That’s not to deny the very
real charm of a piece like the
ubiquitous ‘Baïlèro’, which possesses
a still, ecstatic quality all its own.
Canteloube’s mastery of orchestral
texture is readily apparent, and
though all the notes are present and
correct here from the Lille orchestra
under Jean-Claude Casadesus there’s
a lack of warmth (also reflected
in the recording) that does them
fewer favours than the Lamoureux
Orchestra under Jacquillat on EMI
or the Tenerife Symphony under
Víctor Pablo Perez on Auvidis.
Véronique Gens’s light, delicate
instrument has sex appeal but not the
sensuality and musical sophistication
of Victoria de los Angeles, nor the
brightness and panache of María
Bayo – both of whom perform,
as Gens does, a close-to-complete
set (De los Angeles is even closer).
But despite the claim for Gens as a
native Auvergnat – her birthplace
was actually Orléans – it’s the two
Spanish sopranos who give this
music the greater character and noteby-
note attention, with the palm
awarded to De los Angeles for sheer
beauty of tone. George Hall