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Track(s) taken from CDA67523

Madrid

First line:
Madrid, princesse des Espages
composer
à mon ami Léo Bruant
author of text
1830; Contes d'Espagne at d'Italie

John Mark Ainsley (tenor), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: August 2004
All Saints' Church, East Finchley, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Julian Millard
Release date: June 2006
Total duration: 3 minutes 27 seconds
 

Reviews

‘A disc to treasure’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘John Mark Ainsley understands the idiom of these beguiling songs and delivers them with grace, fluency and clear diction … Graham Johnson's playing is as vivid and piquant as his booklet notes. A delectable disc’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Ainsley—urbane, sexy and witty throughout—is at his absolute best’ (The Guardian)

‘Graham Johnson is quite literally changing the way we hear French mélodie. What a voyage to be invited to join!’ (International Record Review)

‘How does Graham Johnson do it? Once again, he has explored territory that few today have even considered worthy of investigation, and once again, he has come up with an extraordinary CD’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘One of the finest examples of Gallic song performance’ (MusicWeb International)

«Comme toujours, John Mark Ainsley touche à la perfection tant par le style que pour son impeccable diction, et Graham Johnson poursuit en maître artisan son indefatigable exploration du monde du lied et de la mélodie» (Diapason, France)
This is one of the very many Spanish pastiches produced by French composers; the poem is equally a pastiche and it is clear that Musset (in his Contes d’Espagne et d’Italie, 1830) had no great knowledge of the city of Madrid and how it differed in character from Andalusian cities. (The composer leaves out the verse in which Musset refers to his ‘princesse andalouse’ who just happens to be in Castile at the time.) As a portrait of a southern city it is a companion piece to the much more famous Venise, a poem by Musset that Gounod set to magical effect. Puget produces a lively bolero with considerable vocal demands. The music reminds us of Bizet’s Guitare and of Schumann’s Der Hidalgo in equal measure.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2006
English: Richard Stokes

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