Customer Reviews

Songs of the Auvergne [DualDisc]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Excellent - Devrath sings beautifully and naturally - this is the best version of these songs in my opinion. The transfers are excellent also - clear and forward and in god balance. A joy!

This is one of the greatest recordings of folk music arranged for orchestra and singer there has ever been. The instrumentation is rich and credible, evoking pastoral scenes. The singer's voice is flawless, her musical sense sublime. We hear a beautiful woman, and yet also a mischievious little girl. Rather than a performance it seems like we are hearing ancient pasturelands, and we are left wishing that we could run to the other side of the hillside and meet this unspoiled beauty. Or is it just me?

Kiri has the peaches and cream, but this is still the recording I end up coming back to.
Perfect match of voice and diction to music.

I'd forgotten buying this version of 15 of the Songs rendered by Netania Devrath on LP back in the '60s, and was delighted to re-discover it on a double-sided disc from Silverline Classics with normal CD on one side and a DVD version on the other. The latter, cleanly rendered into 5.1 Dolby from the old master analogue tapes, mainly has just B/W stills of her to watch, but also an interesting short talk about her recording history. Her lovely soprano voice is better suited to these shepherd's songs than the well-known Victoria de los Angeles version.

This certainly is a good example of how subjective music perception can be or how random music reviews can be. I bought this CD after reading all the incredibly positive reviews here. After listening to it, I couldn't be more disappointed and embarrassed. I find some songs here excruciatingly slow and drawn out. I don't enjoy the sound of Mrs. Davrath's voice (to me, it often sounds thin and shrill) or the sound of the orchestra, and some of the woodwinds sound outright amateurish (nothing wrong with that at all, but frustrating on a supposedly professional recording).

For anybody who wants to get to know these songs, which are among the most beautiful pieces of music I know, I would urge considering the unbelievably wonderful recording with Frederica von Stade, or at least the very professional and popular recording with Kiri Te Kanawa.