Canteloube defended his orchestration of the folk songs of his native Auvergne, which many critics call over-elaborate, by writing that what he tried to depict was ‘nature herself’. The peasants who sang these songs had as their accompaniment the whole feel of the land, the hills and streams, the sound that only an orchestra can try to depict – or so he felt.

When he was a student and the whole question of folk song was being explored in France, just as it was in England, no classically- trained singer would have used this sort of material. Since Madeleine Grey made the first discs of the Chants d’Auvergne, in 1930 – there is a selection on Pearl – the increasing popularity of the songs has obscured all of Canteloube’s other works. Each decade finds its favourite soloist, in the 1960s it was Natania Devrath, the ‘70s had Victoria de los Angeles, the ‘80s Kiri Te Kanawa, the ‘90s Dawn Upshaw. They were not French, whereas Véronique Gens, whose success in Mozart and Baroque works doesn’t immediately suggest her as the ideal choice, is quite at home in the dialect as she comes from the Auvergne. Her singing is smooth and delicate, with plenty of body in the tone for some of the earthier moments. Inevitably, she sounds more restrained than Grey, who sang with more abandon.

In all, five volumes of Auvergne songs were published between 1923-54. Each singer naturally includes ‘Baïlèro’, the most famous, and Gens does not disappoint in this. The 20 other songs range from the sad ‘Uno jionto postouro’, the lament of the girl whose lover has deserted her, to ‘Malurous qu’o ono Fenno’, the jaunty exposé of unhappy couples. In the Auvergne, life seems to have been uncomplicated by any of the neuroses that be- devilled Canteloube’s Parisian contemporaries.

Jean-Claude Casadesus and the Lille Orchestra bring out all the little details in the score, such as the lovely wood- wind solos that link the three Bourrées. This will no doubt become the interpretation for the present decade. It deserves to be a success, and then maybe the same forces will let us hear some of Canteloube’s enormous body of other songs – there are more than 1000 folk songs from other parts of France, song cycles, choral works and operas.