Mary Bevan: Visions Illuminees
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Label: Signum
Cat No: SIGCD735
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 17th February 2023
Contents
Works
Les Illuminations, op.18Tes yeux bleus
Chanson perpetuelle, op.37
Mandoline (arr. Robin Holloway)
Melodies (3) de Verlaine (arr. Robin Holloway)
Chanson triste
Songs (2), op.46
» no.2 Clair de lune
SerenadesUn grand sommeil noir (arr. Robin Holloway)
Artists
Mary Bevan (soprano)Joseph Middleton (piano)
12 Ensemble
Ruisi Quartet
Works
Les Illuminations, op.18Tes yeux bleus
Chanson perpetuelle, op.37
Mandoline (arr. Robin Holloway)
Melodies (3) de Verlaine (arr. Robin Holloway)
Chanson triste
Songs (2), op.46
» no.2 Clair de lune
SerenadesUn grand sommeil noir (arr. Robin Holloway)
Artists
Mary Bevan (soprano)Joseph Middleton (piano)
12 Ensemble
Ruisi Quartet
About
For her third recital album on Signum Records, celebrated soprano Mary Bevan returns with a selection of French songs, featuring works by composers including Britten, Ravel, Debussy and Fauré.
“Over the years since the release of my debut album Voyages with Joseph Middleton in 2017, my passion for French mélodie has grown and deepened…The texts that composers of mélodie have set to music contain a depth and a mystery that I find fascinating and a source of repeated inspiration… My idea for the album began simply with a desire to record Britten’s Les Illuminations, a work I feel closely connected to, having performed it many times over the years and each time having found something new in it to interest me” – Mary Bevan
“Over the years since the release of my debut album Voyages with Joseph Middleton in 2017, my passion for French mélodie has grown and deepened…The texts that composers of mélodie have set to music contain a depth and a mystery that I find fascinating and a source of repeated inspiration… My idea for the album began simply with a desire to record Britten’s Les Illuminations, a work I feel closely connected to, having performed it many times over the years and each time having found something new in it to interest me” – Mary Bevan
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Fauré: 2 Mélodies, op.46: 2. Clair de lune
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2Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 1. Fanfare
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3Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 2. Villes
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4Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 3a. Phrase
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5Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 3b. Antique
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6Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 4. Royauté
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7Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 5. Marine
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8Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 6. Interlude
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9Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 7. Being beauteous
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10Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 8. Parade
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11Britten: Les Illuminations, op.18: 9. Départ
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12Ravel: Un grand sommeil noir (arr. R Holloway): 1. Les grands vents venus d’outre-mer
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13Ravel: Un grand sommeil noir (arr. R Holloway): 2. Un grand sommeil noir
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14Ravel: Un grand sommeil noir (arr. R Holloway): 3. Si morne
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15Duparc: Chanson triste
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16Chabrier: Tes yeux bleus
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17Chausson: Chanson perpétuelle, op.37
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18Debussy: Trois Mélodies de Verlaine, L85: 1. La mer est plus belle (arr. R Holloway)
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19Debussy: Mandoline, L43 (arr. R Holloway)
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20Debussy: Trois Mélodies de Verlaine, L85: 2. Le son du cor s’afflige (arr. R Holloway)
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21Debussy: Trois Mélodies de Verlaine, L85: 3. L’échelonnement des haies (arr. R Holloway)
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22Holmés: Sérénades: 1. Sérénade printanière
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23Holmés: Sérénades: 2. Sérénade d’Été
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24Holmés: Sérénades: 3. Sérénade d’Automne
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25Holmés: Sérénades: 4. Sérénade d’Hiver
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26Holmés: Sérénades: 5. Sérénade de toujours
Europadisc Review
Soprano Mary Bevan’s attraction to the French repertoire was evident on her solo debut disc, Voyages, released in 2017 by Signum Classics, partnered by pianist Joseph Middleton. Since then, she has excelled in a wide range of music, from the Baroque to the present day. Most recently she has appeared on discs of Barber, Handel and Vaughan Williams, as well as John Frederick Lampe’s The Dragon of Wantley. The special qualities she brings to French music, however, are once again in evidence on her latest recital album (again for Signum), Visions illuminées: supple tone, exquisite high notes, a velvety timbre and, above all, a vibrant engagement with the text.
The disc’s point of departure is Britten’s Les Illuminations, his 1939-40 settings of poetry by the French symbolist Arthur Rimbaud, a work which, says Bevan, ‘I feel closely connected to, having performed it many times over the years and each time having found something new in it to interest me.’ The ‘illumination’ which poetry casts on feelings, and which music in turn can shine on poetry, is the recital’s broader theme, with a series of cycles and individual songs heard either in ensemble versions by the composers, or in new arrangements. Bevan is superbly supported by the musicians of chamber orchestra 12 Ensemble, as well as Middleton and the Ruisi Quartet.
Britten’s Les Illuminations is most familiar these days sung by a tenor (as familiar from Peter Pears’s classic recording), yet it was originally conceived for female voice, and the extra sensuality brought to the score by a soprano is undeniable in this performance. With the conductorless 12 Ensemble forming a close musical partnership, the work crackles into life with the brilliant opening ‘Fanfare’ and the similarly shimmering ‘Villes’ which follows. The brightness of these ‘illuminations’ is evident throughout the work, with textures and details lit up as if from within. Yet in movement IIIa (‘Phrase’) it’s the suspended state of wonder that strikes the listener most powerfully, and Bevan’s octave glissando from her top B flat is one of those moments that lives long in the memory. For those wanting a soprano performance of this popular work, this must now rate as first choice, thanks to its combination of musical insight, textual vividness and attention to detail.
Two other main attractions here are Robin Holloway’s marvellously evocative arrangements of songs by Ravel and Debussy, the first in Un Grand Sommeil noir (three songs to texts by de Régnier, Verlaine and Verhaeren, deploying an expanded version of the scoring used by Ravel for his Trois Poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé, and adding his own linking passages) to explore Ravel’s darker side. The sombre trudge of the central Verlaine setting is particularly haunting. The Quatre Mélodies de Verlaine is an expanded version of Debussy’s Trois Mélodies de Verlaine, with the addition of ‘Mandoline’, again with highly effective transitions of Holloway’s own, this time arranged for the more compact – but no less colourful – combination of soprano and piano quintet. Both these cycles benefit from Holloway’s expertise in the field of early French musical modernism, as well as his own post-Romantic sensibilities, and are marvellously brought to life by Bevan and her colleagues.
The disc opens with Fauré’s own exquisite orchestration of his ‘Clair de lune’, op.46 no.2, against whose limpid, dewy-eyed textures the Britten cycle stands in stark relief. Between the Ravel and Debussy sets, there are songs by Duparc, Chabrier and Chausson. Duparc’s wonderfully dreamy arrangement of his celebrated Chanson triste is given a meltingly beautiful performance, both voice and instruments wonderfully soft-textured. The Wagnerian Hintergrund of Chabrier’s Tes yeux bleus is evident in the composer’s own version for voice and string orchestra, and the desolation of Chausson’s Chanson perpétuelle is projected with a subtle understatement that is deeply touching.
To close, Bevan opts for something closer to the world of salon music, with Augusta Holmès’s delightful, seasonal Sérénades, a five-movement setting of her own texts with wonderfully witty dancelike inflections and a charming music-box texture for the fourth movement ‘Sérénade d’Hiver’ (Middleton at his sparkling best here, carefully shadowed by the players of the Ruisi Quartet). You wouldn’t guess at Holmès’s Wagnerian sympathies or oft-criticised musical ‘masculinity’ in these lovely settings; they make a perfect close to a disc that is sure to delight all lovers of French song, vividly recorded by the Signum team.
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