Instrumentation : High voice - Pf(Fr.) Those interested in French music have often had reason to be grateful to Roger Nichols; his writings on Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen and Poulenc are indispensable to the music lover. Nichols now turns his attentions to the mélodie, where it is his mission to encourage singers to explore beyond the well-trodden paths of French song. In these two anthologies he does not ignore masterpieces by composers of the stature of Fauré and Duparc, but sets them alongside music - almost impossible to find elsewhere in print - by such under-estimated figures as Reber, Viardot, Massé and Paladilhe. Even the more celebrated songs are often not easily found in practical editions, which makes this selection an ideal starting point for wider exploration. In each of these volumes the songs appear in the chronological order of their composer's birth, but Nichols somehow contrives a line-up of music which seems delightfully arbitrary at the same time as carefully designed to enrich everyone's understanding of the mélodie. The books also contain a remarkable amount of scholarship, lightly worn and pithily expressed. As well as complete translations of the songs, there is a useful and concise introduction on singing in French, together with an illuminating historical note and critical commentary; and Nichols gives full due to the poets who were of crucial importance in the development of the mélodie tradition. Graham Johnson Content : Niedermeyer:Le Lac (Meditation poétique);Berlioz:Absence;Gounod:Ô ma belle rebelle;Viardot: Fleur desséchée; Franck: S'il est un charmant gazon; Massé: Consolation;Lalo: Ballade à la lune; Saint-Saëns: La sérénité;Delibes: Chanson espagnole; Bizet: Pastorale; Massenet: Nuit d'Espagne; Chabrier: L'île heureuse; Paladilhe: Sérénité de la nuit; Fauré: Lydia; Fauré: Après un rêve; Duparc: Extase; Chausson: Le colibri; Debussy: Mandoline; Debussy: C'est l'extase langoureuse; Satie: Daphénéo; Satie: Spleen; Séverac: Ma poupée chérie; Dupont: Chanson des noisettes; Poulenc: La Grenouillère Editor :Nichols

Originaltonarten für hohe Stimme. Written in 1885, the eight songs after texts by the now little-known poet Hermann von Gilm have a special place in Richard Strauss? corpus of Lieder. For the first time, he composed an entire set of songs on texts by a single poet, collecting them into one opus that was also to appear in print. Some of the numbers in it, like ?Zueignung,? ?Die Nacht,? and ?Allerseelen,? are among the most popular Strauss songs of all time, but the entire cycle with its well-planned structure is also worthy of closer examination and performance. The aspiring composer quite consciously aligns himself with the tradition ranging from Schubert to Wolf, choosing the highly Romantic subject of unrequited love and illuminating its most diverse facets. The primary source for the Henle Urtext edition is the first edition from 1887, which Strauss furnished with a dedication to the Royal Bavarian chamber singer Heinrich Vogl - a serious invitation to today?s male singers not to leave these wonderful Strauss songs solely to female singers!