The fountain mingles with the river is a setting of Shelley’s Love’s Philosophy, a poem which is known to musicians in the justly famous song by Roger Quilter. Long out of print in England, this Gounod setting of an important lyric has disappeared from view; the song Aimons-nous from the third Choudens collection is reasonably often performed in Barbier’s French translation without acknowledgement (even in the textbooks) that it is one and the same song, albeit with an extra verse added.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1993