Information
Composer: Francis Poulenc
Michel Piquemal, baritone
Christine Lajarrige, piano
Date: 2000
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.553642
- (01) Banalités
- (06) Montparnasse
- (07) Rosemonde
- (08) Bleuet
- (09) Quatre poèmes d'Apollinaire
- (13) Tel jour telle nuit
- (18) Chansons gaillardes
- (26) C'est ainsi que tu es
- (27) C
- (28) Dernier poème
- (29) Priez pour paix
- (30) Chansons villageoises
Michel Piquemal, baritone
Christine Lajarrige, piano
Date: 2000
Label: Naxos
https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.553642
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A bumper-value collection capturing the essence of Poulenc’s [song] songs in performances that show French singing at its best
Here’s something out of the ordinary – at budget price a recital of Poulenc melodies that can stand comparison with any by more famous singers. Not that Michel Piquemal is unknown – his career as director of his own vocal group, as a soloist and teacher has taken him all over the world. The first time he met Pierre Bernac, for whom most of these songs were written, Piquemal recalls that Bernac said: ‘I am very moved, because what you’re doing is exactly what Francis Poulenc was hoping for. He would have been happy.’ Afterwards Piquemal studied both with Bernac and Denise Duval, the two singers who were closest to the composer, so this recital is part of a real, authentic tradition.
The greatest challenge for a singer comes in the best-known songs, for instance Montparnasse and ‘C’. Piquemal doesn’t disappoint. He hasn’t got the luxurious voice for the lyrical climax of the first, at the words ‘Vous etes en realite un poete lyrique d’Allemagne / Qui voulez connaitre Paris,’ but he delivers all the complicated Apollinaire verse in this and the cycle Banalites with a complete understanding of the necessary balance between stressing the irony and maintaining the strict forward-moving musical line. In ‘C’, with Louis Aragon’s extraordinary line – one of the most wonderful moments in all of Poulenc’s songs – ‘Et les armes desamorcees / Et les larmes mal effacees’, Piquemal achieves exactly the slight rallentando before the pp attack on the word ‘delaisse’ in the final line, and just as Bernac insisted, it’s ‘full of feeling’.
The one group that wasn’t composed for a light baritone is Chansons villageoises, which, although sung and recorded by Bernac, was intended for a Verdi baritone; ‘Un tour de chant symphonique’ Poulenc called it. Like Bernac, Piquemal doesn’t have the opulent vocal quality here that Poulenc was looking for, but instead he has an actor’s way with the words that brings personality and humour to a text such as the opening ‘Chanson du clair tamis’ – tres gai et tres vite in Poulenc’s marking. All the brilliance of Maurice Fombeure’s poetry gains clarity from Piquemal’s diction and sense of fun, while the ensuing sadness of ‘C’est le joli printemps’ and the macabre parable of ‘Le mendiant’ are sharply contrasted.
If you want to sample this disc, try Bleuet, and the ‘sensitive lyricism’ that Bernac wrote of. It’s one of the saddest songs Poulenc composed, with its image of the young soldier, the blue referring to the uniform of the conscript who has seen such terrible things while he is still almost a child. It has to be sung ‘intimately’, wrote Poulenc; Bernac, however, thought that it should also be ‘virile and serious’. The penultimate line in which the boy faces the reality – he knows death better than life – is sung by Piquemal with a natural feel for the simplicity of the poem, never overdoing the emphasis, and never becoming arch.
At Naxos’s low price this is a first-rate introduction to Poulenc’s songs, but more than that it is an example of the best kind of French singing. Christine Lajarrige is a sensitive accompanist, for Poulenc always acknowledged that his songs are duets, for voice and piano.
-- Gramophone
More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/dec00/Poulenc_Melodies.htm
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Francis-Poulenc-1899-1963-Melodies-Songs/dp/B00004VXDO
Here’s something out of the ordinary – at budget price a recital of Poulenc melodies that can stand comparison with any by more famous singers. Not that Michel Piquemal is unknown – his career as director of his own vocal group, as a soloist and teacher has taken him all over the world. The first time he met Pierre Bernac, for whom most of these songs were written, Piquemal recalls that Bernac said: ‘I am very moved, because what you’re doing is exactly what Francis Poulenc was hoping for. He would have been happy.’ Afterwards Piquemal studied both with Bernac and Denise Duval, the two singers who were closest to the composer, so this recital is part of a real, authentic tradition.
The greatest challenge for a singer comes in the best-known songs, for instance Montparnasse and ‘C’. Piquemal doesn’t disappoint. He hasn’t got the luxurious voice for the lyrical climax of the first, at the words ‘Vous etes en realite un poete lyrique d’Allemagne / Qui voulez connaitre Paris,’ but he delivers all the complicated Apollinaire verse in this and the cycle Banalites with a complete understanding of the necessary balance between stressing the irony and maintaining the strict forward-moving musical line. In ‘C’, with Louis Aragon’s extraordinary line – one of the most wonderful moments in all of Poulenc’s songs – ‘Et les armes desamorcees / Et les larmes mal effacees’, Piquemal achieves exactly the slight rallentando before the pp attack on the word ‘delaisse’ in the final line, and just as Bernac insisted, it’s ‘full of feeling’.
The one group that wasn’t composed for a light baritone is Chansons villageoises, which, although sung and recorded by Bernac, was intended for a Verdi baritone; ‘Un tour de chant symphonique’ Poulenc called it. Like Bernac, Piquemal doesn’t have the opulent vocal quality here that Poulenc was looking for, but instead he has an actor’s way with the words that brings personality and humour to a text such as the opening ‘Chanson du clair tamis’ – tres gai et tres vite in Poulenc’s marking. All the brilliance of Maurice Fombeure’s poetry gains clarity from Piquemal’s diction and sense of fun, while the ensuing sadness of ‘C’est le joli printemps’ and the macabre parable of ‘Le mendiant’ are sharply contrasted.
If you want to sample this disc, try Bleuet, and the ‘sensitive lyricism’ that Bernac wrote of. It’s one of the saddest songs Poulenc composed, with its image of the young soldier, the blue referring to the uniform of the conscript who has seen such terrible things while he is still almost a child. It has to be sung ‘intimately’, wrote Poulenc; Bernac, however, thought that it should also be ‘virile and serious’. The penultimate line in which the boy faces the reality – he knows death better than life – is sung by Piquemal with a natural feel for the simplicity of the poem, never overdoing the emphasis, and never becoming arch.
At Naxos’s low price this is a first-rate introduction to Poulenc’s songs, but more than that it is an example of the best kind of French singing. Christine Lajarrige is a sensitive accompanist, for Poulenc always acknowledged that his songs are duets, for voice and piano.
-- Gramophone
More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/dec00/Poulenc_Melodies.htm
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Francis-Poulenc-1899-1963-Melodies-Songs/dp/B00004VXDO
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Francis Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. A member of group Les Six, Poulenc had a reputation, particularly in his native country, as a humorous, lightweight composer, and his religious music was often overlooked. During the 21st century more attention has been given to his serious works. Among his best-known compositions are Trois mouvements perpétuels (piano suite, 1919), Les biches (ballet, 1923), Concert champêtre (1928), Organ Concerto (1938), Dialogues des Carmélites (opera, 1957), and Gloria (for soprano, choir and orchestra, 1959).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Poulenc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Poulenc
***
Michel Piquemal (born 15 April 1947 in Paris) is a French choir conductor and conductor. He is also an operatic singer (baritone). Piquemal studied with Françoise Deslogères at the Boulogne Conservatory, then with Pierre Bernac and Denise Duval at the "Maîtrise of the ORTF". Piquemal has been invited to conduct many national and international orchestras. His discography is rich and diversified, both as a baritone and a conductor. Piquemal taught singing at the Maîtrise de Radio France, then for nearly ten years at the Conservatoire de Paris until 1994, and at the 18th arrondissement of Paris's Conservatory until 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Piquemal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Piquemal
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