Ernest Chausson

[Sir Velo]

I had forgotten how much I love Poeme for violin and orchestra - dug out Kyung Wha Chung's recording from the 1970s and cannot stop playing it .

Thanks to this recommendation I nearly ended up duplicating a work already in my collection. It was only after scrolling through all the available versions of Poeme that I alighted upon Sergey Khachatryan's debut EMI recital which contains a scintillating performance of Poeme. I'm sure KYC is very good but it would be hard pushed to replace the young Russian in my affections.

Must dig out Collard, Dumay and the Muir Qt's splendid Gramophone 1987 award winning recording of the Concert later. The autumnal hues in the sky and trees now appearing sum up the essence of Chausson's wistful art.

[Barbirollians]

Isn't Khachatryan's version with piano accompaniment ? I do much prefer the orchestral version and KWC's can be had coupled either with her superb Debussy and Franck sonatas or with her recordings of Saint Saens Violin Concertos 1 and 3 .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Chausson's "other" Poeme (the Poeme de l'Amour et de la Mer) is the one that I find most overwhelmingly convincing and irresistable, especially in the recording by Janet Baker with the LSO and Previn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC6NROWBRGk

... and there's a fine recording with Caballé and Wyn Morris. And then there's Ferrier with Bob O'Reilly and the Hallé - recorded on very primitive equipment (with the needle mostly in the red) from a broadcast performance (given, it sounds, in a Manchester chip shop on a Friday night): but this is tragically all we have of one of her most frequently performed works (Barbirolli and Ferrier had contracts with different recording companies, and there was no one in the DECCA "stables" with whom she could confidently record the work.) Pointless pretending that the results even begin to compete with Baker or Caballé but, if you buy it, proceeds go to Cancer charities.

[Barbirollians]

Chausson's "other" Poeme (the Poeme de l'Amour et de la Mer) is the one that I find most overwhelmingly convincing and irresistable, especially in the recording by Janet Baker with the LSO and Previn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC6NROWBRGk

... and there's a fine recording with Caballé and Wyn Morris. And then there's Ferrier with Bob O'Reilly and the Hallé - recorded on very primitive equipment (with the needle mostly in the red) from a broadcast performance (given, it sounds, in a Manchester chip shop on a Friday night): but this is tragically all we have of one of her most frequently performed works (Barbirolli and Ferrier had contracts with different recording companies, and there was no one in the DECCA "stables" with whom she could confidently record the work.) Pointless pretending that the results even begin to compete with Baker or Caballé but, if you buy it, proceeds go to Cancer charities.

I only have Dame janet in her live BBC Legends account and that is pretty marvellous too . Svetlanov a symapthetic conductor .

The Ferrier/Barbirolli account is indeed in primitive sound but it is treasurable nevertheless . A great shame that they were not able to record it together in the studio. Poignantly, I recall Barbirolli in an interview saying that when he last saw her in hospital only days before she died she sang him a passage from the Chausson and that whilst her body was close to death her voice was unimpaired .

In his biography Michael Kennedy records that Barbirolli could not bear to listen to her voice after she died and did not hear a note of her singing before he died . When Kennedy said to him surely that he must have heard it on the radio etc he replied that he seemed to have a sixth sense that he was about to hear it and always turned it off in time.

The Poeme for violin and orchestra is a marvellous work especially in KWC's recording when truly the violin sounds like the sun coming through the clouds .

[slarty]

The Ferrier-Barbirolli performance joins the great list of BBC missed/mismanaged opportunities, i.e. That they did not keep a copy of the broadcast, or worse, junked it.
As primitive as it may be, it is treasurable non the less.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As primitive as it may be, it is treasurable non the less.

The sound of Ferrier's singing is amongst my oldest sound memories - everything she did is treasurable to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-htU4iI4iO4

... I'm pretty enthusiastic about Barbirolli, too.

[Barbirollians]

..


Me too . I bought from Britannia Music ! as a teenager " the World of Kathleen Ferrier" and the Boult stereoised ! Bach and Handel Arias .

I do remember being given a funny look in HMV as 16 year old when I bought Vol 2 of the World of KF with one of The Smiths LPs !

[Barbirollians]

slarty and fhgl I don't know whether you saw this thread but this old BBC radio documentary from the 1970s is well worth listening to. It includes a number of contibutions from others I have not heard before and a particularly heartfelt one from Britten.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?9273-BBC-Radio-Documentary-on-Kathleen-Ferrier-from-1970-or-so&highlight=kathleen+ferrier

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I do remember being given a funny look in HMV as 16 year old when I bought Vol 2 of the World of KF with one of The Smiths LPs !

- I once bought a Video of Cosi fan Tutte (Muti) and The Cure's Boys Don't Cry on cassette from Woolworths in Eastbourne. As the girl on the Till didn't even look at what I was buying (nor at me, or anyone/anything else in the store) I was spared any funny looks.

[Barbirollians]

- I once bought a Video of Cosi fan Tutte (Muti) and The Cure's Boys Don't Cry on cassette from Woolworths in Eastbourne. As the girl on the Till didn't even look at what I was buying (nor at me, or anyone/anything else in the store) I was spared any funny looks.

It was at the height of the Smiths' popularity and I suppose picking up the second record and finding it was by some long dead contralto Kathleen Ferrier was a bit of a surprise !

[HighlandDougie]

Not just slarty and fhg - deeply grateful, Barbirollians, for bringing this to the fore. I've just been listening to her singing, "Out on the lawn I lie in bed", in the recording of the first performance of the Spring Symphony so it is deeply moving to be able to listen to Britten (and others, not least Sir JB) speak of her.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... deeply grateful, Barbirollians, for bringing this to the fore.

Some of this documentary was used on the LP A Singer is a Voice, narrated by Peter Pears - but a great deal here that wasn't included there. Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous ...

[Mary Chambers]

Some of this documentary was used on the LP A Singer is a Voice, narrated by Peter Pears - but a great deal here that wasn't included there. Marvellous, marvellous, marvellous ...

Wasn't that A Voice is a Person? I have it somewhere.

[AjAjAjH]

Absolutely love the symphony in B flat,that and the other works mentioned are all I know

Heard it live in Manchester when Tortelier was Conductor of the BBC Phil and conducting a lot of French music.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't that A Voice is a Person? I have it somewhere.

Indeed it was - I still have the LP (and Pears actually uses the phrase in the documentary Barbi provides). There are times when the much-missed "doh!" emoticon becomes irreplaceable. (I mean, I ask you ... "a singer is a voice"???!!!!!)