Gerald Finley, Julius Drake - Ravel: Songs
List Price:
Our Price: $14.01
You Save: $5.97 (30%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $10.00 (click here)
Category: Music CD
See more CD details
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
CD Details
Artist: Gerald Finley, Julius DrakeComposer: Ravel
Conductor: none
Performer: Finley
Performer: Drake
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Import
CD Release Date: 2009-06-09
Music Label: Hyperion
Soundtracks:
- Histoires naturelles, song cycle for voice & piano: Le paon
- Histoires naturelles, song cycle for voice & piano: Le grillon
- Histoires naturelles, song cycle for voice & piano: Le cygne
- Histoires naturelles, song cycle for voice & piano: La pintade
- Un grand sommeil noir, song for voice & piano
- Les Grands Vents venus d'Outre-mer, for voice & piano
- Sur l'herbe, for voice & piano
- Chants populaires, song cycle for voice & piano (or orchestra): Chanson italienne
Music reviews of Ravel: Songs
Music Review: AMELETTE RAVELETTE
Rating: 5 Stars
The respected musical sage Tovey described Ravel as `eclectic'. Tovey used the term in a sniffy sort of way: myself, I would agree with it as a description, but from me it would be a term of praise. Ravel is nothing if not internationally minded for one thing. Should we think of him as French or as Basque? Like most French (?) composers he was fascinated with the music of Spain, but one thing that makes this particular recital interesting is that it restricts the Spanish element to three rather lightweight songs about Don Quixote. The cultural diversity takes in Greece Italy and Scotland, plus `Hebraic' numbers in both Yiddish and Hebrew (if I'm not mistaken), and on top of the genuine French element there is one French song to a poem by Ronsard that is actually adapted from Latin - `Amelette Ronsardelette', from the dying Emperor Hadrian's little address to his own soul `animula vagula blandula'.
I would recommend any purchaser of this disc who is not already an expert in Ravel's songs to study the liner note thoughtfully, however much effort that takes. It's like ploughing through treacle as the author communes with himself about arcane musicological details to the exclusion of the rest of us, but it is genuinely illuminating in tracing the sequence and order of the composition of these songs. Ravel's eclectic taste went this way and that way, and if we want to appreciate his genius we have to follow him as best we can. Compared with Faure or Brahms, to say nothing of Schubert, Ravel did not turn out all that many songs. However their variety is astonishing. One number strikes me as verging on ridiculous, namely `Ye banks and braes', sung in the authentic Burnsian English to the original sentimental tune composed by whoever composed it and with a token amount of French fannying about by Ravel himself. At the other end of the scale is the setting of Verlaine's Un grand sommeil noir, which is about exactly what you think it is about, and which recalls nothing less than Schubert's Der Doeppelgaenger.
That particular song benefits from a voice like Gerald Finley's, and so does the powerful penultimate Kaddisch, adroitly sequenced just before the lighter-weight number that concludes this fascinating series of 26 songs. You can read about both Finley and his piano partner Julius Drake in the liner, and it is no surprise to learn that they are experienced in working together. I had become familiar with Finley from Gardiner's great `Pilgrimage' series of Bach cantatas done in the year 2000, and what I had become familiar with was a superb resonant baritone and an equally superb technique and discipline. Finley seems just as at home in early 20th century French music as in the German school of two centuries earlier, and I am no more inclined to look for faults in his work here than there. It is all `French' enough for my taste, he seems to me to be alert to the kaleidoscopic variety of moods that these songs express, his voice suits all of them well enough although probably the more powerful ones best, and his piano colleague is with him all the way.
We demand a high standard in recorded quality these days, we demand it rightly, and we are given it here, or at least to my own satisfaction. There is not all that much music by Ravel - someone has totted up about 16 hours of it altogether. So far as I am concerned that gives me no excuse for staying ignorant of any of it, this particular recital has advanced my own insight, and I recommend the experience to as many as I can.
More Ravel: Songs free music reviews:
1
1
Description of Ravel: Songs
The award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake continues their musical explorartions with this beautiful and thought-provoking disc. Finley's lustrous tones, extraordinary gift for characterization, and direct, unaffected utterance make him an ideal and revelatory performer of Ravel's songs. These works, somewhat under-appreciated in the composer's oeuvre, demonstrate the endless variety and vast emotional scope of Ravel's musical sphere. Charming folk-song settings contrast with the almost surrealist world of Histoires naturelles, which caused outrage at its first performance. In the words of Roger Nichols, who provides the fascinating booklet notes, From the sepulchral gloom of 'Un grand sommeil noir' to the final exclamation ' Je bois/ A la joie,' Ravel's songs embrace a whole world.Classical CDs
Music Genres
Bestsellers in Classical CDs
Winterscapesby London Philharmonic
Prophetic Voice; Published: 2000-07; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
The Queen, the Bear, & the Bumblebeeby Dini Petty
Children's Group; Published: 2001-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $13.38
Price in other shops:
Classical Kids - Beethoven Lives Upstairs CdrRelease date: 2000-04-05; Music CD
Best price: $24.98
Tchaikovsky (Life and Works (Naxos))by Malcolm Sinclair, Jeremy Siepmann
Naxos; Published: 2003-11; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $35.99
![Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS] Image](/images/Jose-Carreras-Jubileum-Concert-VHS-1584481471-X.jpg){kind=small}
Jose Carreras - Jose Carreras - Jubileum Concert [VHS]Sling Shot; Release date: 2000-04-18; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
![Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS] Image](/images/Tchaikovsky-The-Nutcracker-Nureyev-Park-Royal-Ballet-VHS-156127092X-X.jpg){kind=small}
Tchaikovsky - The Nutcracker / Nureyev, Park, Royal Ballet [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.89
Price in other shops:
![Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS] Image](/images/Lonely-Town-Lonley-Street-Sergeant-Early-Dream-VHS-1561270857-X.jpg){kind=small}
Rambert Dance Company - Lonely Town Lonley Street / Sergeant's Early Dream [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1997-10-28; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $14.99
Price in other shops:
Winter Music: Composing the Northby John Luther Adams
Wesleyan; Published: 2004-11-10; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.95
Price in other shops:
![Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Puccini-La-Fanciulla-del-West-Santi-Domingo-Neblett-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720382-X.jpg){kind=small}
Puccini - La Fanciulla del West / Santi, Domingo, Neblett, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $6.38
Price in other shops:
![Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS] Image](/images/Verdi-Falstaff-Giulini-Bruson-Ricciarelli-Nucci-Royal-Opera-Covent-Garden-VHS-0769720358-X.jpg){kind=small}
Verdi - Falstaff / Giulini, Bruson, Ricciarelli, Nucci, Royal Opera Covent Garden [VHS]Kultur Video; Release date: 1999-05-25; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops:
Similar CDs
Beethoven: FidelioRelease date: 2011-08-02; Music CD
Best price: $22.45
Price in other shops:
Great Operatic Arias: Gerald FinleyRelease date: 2010-02-23; Music CD
Best price: $8.81
Price in other shops:
Gerald Finley, Julius Drake - The Ballad SingerRelease date: 2011-06-14; Music CD
Best price: $14.16
Price in other shops:
Ravel: The Piano Concertos; Valses nobles et sentimentalesRelease date: 1999-02-09; Music CD
Best price: $10.55
Price in other shops:
Songs by Tchaikovsky, Musorgsky and Ned RoremRelease date: 2008-11-28; Music CD
Best price: $9.12
Price in other shops:
Gerald Finley - Schumann: Dichterliebe & other Heine SettingsRelease date: 2008-09-09; Music CD
Best price: $13.98
Price in other shops:
A Song - For Anything: Songs by Charles IvesRelease date: 2005-10-11; Music CD
Best price: $14.17
Price in other shops:
Songs by Samuel BarberRelease date: 2007-11-13; Music CD
Best price: $13.35
Price in other shops:
Gerald Finley, Julius Drake - Britten: Songs & Proverbs of William BlakeRelease date: 2010-06-08; Music CD
Best price: $14.32
Price in other shops:
Ravel Songs (Histoires naturelles, Chanccons madécasses)Release date: 2004-01-20; Music CD
Best price: $10.98
Price in other shops: