Customer Reviews

Orchestral Songs - Berlioz: Les Nuits d'ete / Britten: Les illuminations / Duparc & Ravel: Songs,etc.

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This is a bargain repackaging of recordings that Hendricks released in 1994 with Colin Davis (Berlioz and Britten) and 1989 with John Eliot Gardiner (Ravel and Duparc). Her distinctive voice, which is light without being coquettish and silvery but with a pronounced beat, can strike you as ravishing or a bit hard to take over a long stretch of time. But thanks to her long residence in France, the singer's French seems quite idiomatic and easy; in addition, she applies herself to these orchestrated songs with very appealing musical instincts. Hers is the lightest voice I've ever heard in Les nuts d'ete and Sheherazade. With Janet Baker's recordings in the back of my mind, it took some adjustment to hear either work floated over the orchestra with almost no weight.

The Gramophone reviewer suggests that Hendircks wasn't a good match with the aging Colin Davis, who was going through a rather stodgy period. But despite some slow tempos in the Berlioz, he's quite lively i Britten's Les Illuminations. This is a high-flying work that requires excellent diction, and for once the cliche is true: not only does the music fit the voice of Peter Pears perfectly (Britten wrote the work for his life partner) but few other singers seem to get it just right. Hendricks is vocally right, her only fault being that she misses the irony and biting tone of Rimbaud's poetry -- this is more like a vocalise as she spins out her pearly tones. But there's no denying how beautiful those tones are. I'd rate this the most beautiful reading by a soprano since Sylvia McNair's on Philips under Ozawa. EMI's sound is a bit murky, however, and the singer is sometimes swamped by the orchestra thanks to miking that is somewhat distant.

The Ravel-Duparc album that fills CD 2 is even better, finding the singer is fresher voice and totally adapted to the music's delicate idiom. Gardiner is also a livelier conductor and leads a French orchestra, always a help in Ravel. Sheherazade is't the best conducted that I've ever heard, but the singer is as captivating as the young Kathleen Battle, which is high praise (I'm making a general statement; I don't believe that Battle ever recorded this languorous, seductive song cycle). De los Angeles is ore flirtatious in the miscellaneous Ravel songs, but that's a small criticism. The Duparc songs are just as successful -- indeed, you have to bend over backward to find any serious fault with either CD. As a collection of Fench vocal masterpieces, plus Britten's foreign tribute to that tradition, this two-fer is unique and delightful.