The increasingly long list of song records made by Hyperion is one of the main pleasures of the current catalogue. This is among the best of them. Stephen Varcoe has, for some years now been our foremost interpreter of melodies, and he well deserves a disc to himself. As has been the case in recitals, his mentor here is Graham Johnson, who has devised a programme demonstrating at once the variety and continuity of the genre over the past 80 years.
Varcoe's sensitive, refined voice follows in the best tradition of French baritones, and his enunciation of the language is as idiomatic as that of his great predecessors. He is also master of the many different styles needed here. He has the lightness of touch for the songs by Meyerbeer and Delibes (the latter once recorded memorably by Muzio) the elan and the ecstasy for the pieces by Massenet and Chabrier (what a wonderful song is L'isle heureuse), the restrained passion for those by Duparc and Debussy, the dry humour for the quirky Satie, and the popular touch for Fascination, now known to be by Ravel.
There are welcome discoveries here, as in any Johnson miscellany—Lalo's wistful Souvenir, Honegger's enchanting Chanson de fol and Durey's settings of Le bestiaire. And those two underrated composers in this field, Chausson and Hahn, are represented by two of their lesser-known songs, both near-masterpieces. Even the songs by Ravel (the surreal Sur l'herbe, written under his own name), Debussy and Faure are far from being among their more familiar. So this generously filled disc will afford many, many quarts d'heure of pleasure.
Occasionally one might ask for a rather fuller tone from the singer. One or two speeds seems to me unduly slow—Oh! quand je dors drags, Phidyle is a shade laboured—but there is little to mar and much to enhance one's pleasure. Praise to Hyperion for offering such an informative note (from Johnson) and excellent translations, a small brick-bat for putting a little too much reverberation around voice and piano (a frequent fault with this company). But let nothing prevent you investigating and, I hope, enjoying this rewarding selection. And now I shall go right back and play again that haunting song Fascination.R1 '8806093'