Alexandra Lowe: Le Voyage
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Champs Hill
Magazine Review Date: 06/2023
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 59
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHRCD169
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Shéhérazade |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Adieux de l'hôtesse arabe |
Georges Bizet, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Le voyage |
Charles (Louis Eugène) Koechlin, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
La chanson d'Ishak de Mossoul |
Charles (Louis Eugène) Koechlin, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
(5) Mélodies populaires grecques |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
(3) Chansons de Bilitis |
Claude Debussy, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Ouvre ton coeur (La marguerite a fermé) |
Georges Bizet, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Chants populaires, Movement: Chanson espagnole |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Vocalise-étude en forme de habanera |
Maurice Ravel, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
(Les) Filles de Cadix |
(Michelle Ferdinande) Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Madrid |
(Michelle Ferdinande) Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Composer
Alexandra Lowe, Soprano Patrick Milne, Piano |
Author: David Patrick Stearns
Anything as widely recorded as Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Cinq Mélodies populaires grecques needs to arrive in distinguished form to catch one’s ear – and this disc does so in unexpected ways. The repertoire has Ravel’s three Shéhérazade songs from 1902 in close proximity to two selections from Koechlin’s 1922 23 deeper dive into the same collection of Tristan Klingsor poems, with 13 songs published under Op 56 and Op 84. Initially, the lack of any complete recording of the Koechlin songs – whose texts are seductive rhapsodies often projecting an imaginary vision of the Orient – seems criminal. But the two songs heard here (one of them, ‘Le voyage’, is also on Sabine Devieilhe’s ‘Mirages’ album – Erato, 12/17) have challenging vocal lines and a sense of meaning that is held just out of reach. Though ‘La chanson d’Ishak de Mossoul’ intriguingly veers between mystery, longing and atonality, even Alexandra Lowe’s probing performance didn’t pique my curiosity about Koechlin’s other songs.
The Koechlin comparison, however, gives a new perspective on Ravel’s Shéhérazade. The contrast with Koechlin’s lack of conventional forms shows how Ravel used form as the primary expressive element. In ‘Asie’, the poem’s incantatory repetition syncs with the composer’s way of developing themes from a series of three discrete statements that continuously build on each other. In other Shéhérazade poems, Ravel’s contemplative sense of stasis beautifully conveys the emotional content without the distraction of many exterior details, just as Monet’s paintings blur form to reveal content. Elsewhere in the recital, Ravel’s Greek songs are sung in Greek rather than French (maybe not as authentically as by mezzo-soprano Irma Kolassi – 9/52, now on Eloquence – but close enough), plus sprinkles of lesser-known Bizet and some wonderfully lively Viardot, all worth getting to know.
For all her linguistic adeptness, Spanish-born British soprano Lowe is a tone-based singer who knows how to use vocal colour as an imaginative vehicle of expression. Her best moment is in Ravel’s Vocalise-étude en forme de habanera, in which she projects a wide, imaginative emotional range in a vocalise that’s literally beyond words. This strength is also an important component in the success of Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis. Elsewhere, though, one fears that her voice doesn’t yet have the technique to fully realise how she envisions a song. Bizet’s ‘Adieux de l’hôtesse Arabe’ has some vocal labour, forced tone and loud passages that jump out of nowhere – amid phrases so emotionally apt that you’re sure this is a great recitalist in the making. Pianist Patrick Milne (who is also a conductor) is a significant discovery. He makes you forget that you ever heard the orchestral version of Ravel’s Shéhérazade, so deftly does he focus on the essence of any given passage and find its deepest meaning.
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