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Track(s) taken from CDA66856

La Coccinelle

First line:
Elle me dit: Quelque chose
composer
1868
author of text
Les contemplations

François Le Roux (baritone), Graham Johnson (piano)
Recording details: January 1996
Rosslyn Hill Unitarian Chapel, Hampstead, London, United Kingdom
Produced by Arthur Johnson
Engineered by Antony Howell & Julian Millard
Release date: January 1997
Total duration: 1 minutes 38 seconds

Cover artwork: À l'ombres des bosquets chante un jeune poète. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891)
Reproduced by permission of The Wallace Collection, London / Bridgeman Images
 

Reviews

‘This is the most resounding blow yet to be struck for the mélodies of Saint-Saëns … Le Roux is one of the most charismatic performers of our time … this is certainly one of the best things he has done so far. A double welcome for performers and rare repertory’ (Gramophone)

‘Musical jewels surface with delightful consistency in this 27-song recital. An absorbing and revelatory disc’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘There's hardly a dud among these 30-or-so songs on this well filled, perfectly recorded disc, an ideal accompaniment to a hot summer evening’ (The Daily Telegraph)

‘Another immensely pleasant recital from Hyperion, both in content and performance. [François Le Roux] is establishing himself as the leading French baritone of the day’ (Classic CD)

«François Le Roux est l'interprète prédestiné. Son intelligence des mots, son sens de la juste inflexion font ici merveille» (Diapason, France)

'Apoya magnificamente al baritono, firmando entre ambos un trabajo auténticamente digno de conocerse. Sonido exemplar' (CD Compact, Spain)
Both Saint-Saëns and Bizet set this poem in 1868, but it is Bizet’s setting which is famous (in as much as mélodies by Bizet could ever claim to be well known, more’s the pity). Bizet feels very sorry for the young man and gives him a role to play which makes him as sympathetic as Vašek in The Bartered Bride. Saint-Saëns on the other hand cannot suffer fools gladly. He is happy to see the young man utterly at a loss, and he gives some of the most piquant music to the scornful insect. It would not take a great psychiatrist to work out which of the two composers was more sympathetic to the world of romance and courtship. But what is delightful about the Saint-Saëns song is its economy, and how it tells the story simply and amusingly. The accompaniment is a model of clarity in a manner which is utterly suitable for a little fable-cum-parable of this sort. The expression ‘Bête au bon dieu’ is another name for a ladybird, and one suspects that Hugo has set-up the whole of this incident to make a somewhat laboured pun on this fact.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1997

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