Customer Reviews

Dans un bois solitaire (French cantatas) / Lesne, Il Seminario Musicale

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... it has been re-released as one of five CDS in the Virgin Classics box "Gerard Lesne: Cantatas", which I have already reviewed.

Still, if you are utterly enamoured of Lesne's singing, you might choose eagerly to buy this single CD and pay more for it than for the whole box of five. That would be admirably beneficent of you, since you can be sure than Lesne gets a bigger royalty from the original than from the re-release.

Of the five composers here, only Clerambault has any reputation even among Baroque-niks, but all five were inspired to produce at least these few elegant, slightly elegaic, quirkily original vocal gems. It's a delight to hear Lesne sing his native French with as much emotional authenticity as any cabaret chanteuse. Lesne, by the way, also sings a kind of cabaret repertoire, his own compositions, part jazz part pop. You can hear him on two CDs: "Mad Lesne" and "Colors". It is, in Lesne's case, the affect that makes the music.