Renaud is often termed, and rightly, the French Battistini: there’s the same smoothness of tonal emission throughout his range, the same seamless line, the same care in matching text to that line. In other words there’s an object-lesson here in the aristocratic art of the French school, derived from Lasalle and Maurel, Renaud’s great predecessors. In today’s favouring of homogenized voices, the younger listener might find Renaud’s peculiarly French timbre strange and/or old-fashioned, but then Renaud was sensible enough to sing all his repertory in his native tongue to which his individual style was fitted.
His versions of “Parais la fenetre” (“Deh vieni alla finestra” – though a reprise is sung in Italian!), “O douce etoile” (“O du mein holder Abenstern”), “Du temps passe” (“Die Frist ist um”) all sound, from his point of view, more effective in French, but of course he is at his most persuasive in the music of his own country in roles for which he was famous on stage. His “Vision fugitive” (Herodiade) is by general consent the best ever recorded, subtly shaped, intensely felt; the same may be said of “Promesse de mon avenir” (Le roi de Lahore), and few if any have equalled his versions of Mephistopheles’s solos from La favorite and La damnation de Faust, the first so moving, the second so sinister. Tell’s “Sois immobile” and Hamlet’s “Comme une pale fleur” reach almost the same standard. All these solos are given here in more than one version, recorded over the century’s first decade, the baritone, then in his forties, maintaining a remarkable consistency in voice and style, though the later recordings are, inevitably, more amenable to the ear.
Besides the immaculate singing, what comes across is Renaud’s renowned gifts as an actor. He took pride in thinking himself into each character he portrayed, and that is conveyed, in terms of sound alone, by well-managed inflexions and keen voicing of the words, also adornments of his readings of such once-popular songs as “Plaisir d’amour”. The transfers are, as one would expect from Marston, now presenting his own label, faultless. My only reservation concerns the many repetitions. Useful as it is for the specialist to have a singer virtually complete on CD, newcomers might prefer a single CD with just one version of each piece: perhaps that can be arranged.'