Welcome to Hyperion Records, an independent British classical label devoted to presenting high-quality recordings of music of all styles and from all periods from the twelfth century to the twenty-first.

Hyperion offers both CDs, and downloads in a number of formats. The site is also available in several languages.

Please use the dropdown buttons to set your preferred options, or use the checkbox to accept the defaults.

Click cover art to view larger version
Track(s) taken from CDA67647

La chanson du bébé

First line:
Maman, le gros Bébé t'appelle, il a bobo
composer
Péchés de vieillesse Vol xi (Miscellanée de musique vocale) No 2
author of text

Miah Persson (soprano), Roger Vignoles (piano)
Recording details: April 2007
Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, United Kingdom
Produced by Mark Brown
Engineered by Ben Connellan
Release date: June 2008
Total duration: 2 minutes 44 seconds

Cover artwork: The Gondala, Venice, with Santa Maria della Salute in the Distance (1865). James Holland (1799-1870)
Copyright Harris Museum & Art Gallery, Preston, Lancashire, England / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘Rossini's writing for the piano is highly idiosyncratic. It requires a first-rate technique, a sure sense of style and an ability to bring off insouciance all manner of hair's-breadth effects. Mr Vignoles has the measure of all this and more’ (Gramophone)

‘Salon music at its most sophisticated and highly wrought. Gently elegiac bel canto arias jostle with popular dance rhythms, from a yodelling Tyrolean waltz to the snap and swagger of the bolero and fandango … the three singers give virtually unalloyed pleasure’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘All four musicians make a positive contribution to this charming, entertaining disc—a surprise venture into a still under-explored area of art-song by the ever-enterprising Hyperion’ (International Record Review)

‘It's hard for any disc of Rossini's Paris salon songs not to speed by in a wink of delight. And it's impossible with Miah Persson's bright soprano and the sensitive accompaniments of Roger Vignoles’ (The Times)

‘Rossini's salon works are witty, charming, tuneful and downright silly, complete with florid vocal lines. Lovely performances’ (Classic FM Magazine)

‘Joyous music-making that is perfect for a summer's evening’ (Daily Mail)

‘There isn't a low point on the entire disc. Roger Vignoles plays with all his characteristic intelligence and subtlety. Miah Persson is enchanting in the opening La promessa, and playfully dazzling in La pastorella dell'Alpi. Stella Doufexis' pure, rich voice gives perfect expression to L’orpheline du Tyrol, and the two women's voices meld together magically when paired in duets such as La pesca. Meanwhile, Bruce Ford is technically brilliant and dramatically engaging in the drinking song, L'orgia, and smoothly leads the mood from light to darkness with L'esule, the first of the Péchés de vieillesse. If Rossini's songs are the cake and the performers the icing, the recording itself is the unexpected cherry on top. The acoustic of Potton Hall in Suffolk immediately transports you to the intimate space of Rossini's salon, candles flickering, guests listening intently, adding a further dimension to this already wonderful disc’ (bbc.co.uk)
La chanson du bébé sets a poem by Pacini, full of baby language, with the infant revelling in his limited vocabulary of ‘atishoo’, ‘Mummy’, ‘yummy’, ‘wee-wee’, ‘bye-byes’ and, most memorably ‘pooh’ (‘ca-ca’) as at the end of the song he triumphantly lets the world know that he has done his business! (Rossini, by the way, could not abide dirt of any description.)

from notes by Richard Stokes © 2008

La chanson du bébé met en musique un poème de Pacini truffé de mots enfantins; le bébé s’y délecte de son vocabulaire limité—«Atchi», «maman», «bon nanan», «pipi», «dodo» et surtout «ca-ca» lorsque, à la fin de la mélodie, il annonce triomphalement qu’il a fait! (Rossini, soit dit en passant, ne supportait aucune sorte de saleté.)

extrait des notes rédigées par Richard Stokes © 2008
Français: Hypérion

La chanson du bébé vertont ein Gedicht von Pacini, diesmal voller Babysprache; das Kindchen freut sich an seinem begrenzten Vokabular von „hatschi“, „Mami“, „hmm“, „Pipi“, „baba“ und besonders „Kacka“, als es am Ende des Liedes triumphal die Welt wissen lässt, dass es sein Geschäft gemacht hat! (Rossini konnte übrigens Schmutz aller Art nicht ausstehen.)

aus dem Begleittext von Richard Stokes © 2008
Deutsch: Renate Wendel

Waiting for content to load...
Waiting for content to load...