Alexandre Tharaud, Danielle Darrieux — Poulenc: Complete Chamber Music Vol. 5, Naxos (Audio CD)

Vadonatúj! Gyári csomagolásban! Fóliázott! Mint a képen! Vásároljon bizalommal! Foliaban!

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Product Details

• UPC: 730099461528
• Label: Naxos
• Composer: Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
• Performers: Alexandre Tharaud (piano), Ronald Van Spaendonck (clarinet), Thibault Vieux (violin), Laurent Lefèvre (bassoon), Stéphane Logerot (double bass), Danielle Darrieux (voice), François Mouzaya and Natasha Emerson (narrators)
• Catalogue Number: 8.553615
• Release Year: 2000
• Genre: Classical — Chamber Music / Narrated Work
• Country of Producing: European Community (EC)

Product Features

• Format: Audio CD, factory sealed
• Recording: DDD (fully digital)
• Playing Time: 73:37
• Recorded at Temple du Bon Secours, Paris, between October 1995 and October 1997
• Cover Photo: Noizay, Francis Poulenc's country house in Touraine (photo © Sophie Peignot)

Overview

This entry in Naxos's Poulenc chamber music series is built around a genuine oddity: two full narrated versions — French and English — of The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant, Poulenc's musical setting of Jean de Brunhoff's children's book. It's a rare chance to hear the same narrated score in both languages on one disc, and the piece itself is more substantial than its subject suggests — over 20 minutes of narration woven through piano writing that shifts mood scene by scene, closer to a compact musical fairy tale than incidental background music.

The rest of the program pulls from Poulenc's work for the stage: incidental music for two Jean Anouilh plays, L'Invitation au Château (known to English audiences as Ring Round the Moon) and Léocadia (staged in English as Time Remembered), the latter including the sung waltz Les Chemins de l'Amour with legendary French actress Danielle Darrieux on voice. Together these tracks show a side of Poulenc that rarely gets attention next to his better-known concert works — a composer writing fast, functional, mood-setting music for the theatre, and doing it with real wit.

For collectors already working through Naxos's Poulenc chamber series, this volume fills in a genuinely different corner of his output — vocal, theatrical, bilingual — rather than repeating the instrumental territory of the earlier volumes.

Interesting Facts

• This disc includes The Story of Babar in both its original French narration and a full separate English-language version — a bilingual pairing rarely offered on a single classical release.
• Danielle Darrieux, one of French cinema's most celebrated actresses with a career spanning over 70 years, provides the sung vocal on Les Chemins de l'Amour from Léocadia.
• Jean Anouilh's play L'Invitation au Château is known to English-speaking audiences under a different title entirely, Ring Round the Moon, in Christopher Fry's well-known translation.
• The recordings span a full two years, from October 1995 to October 1997, all made at the Temple du Bon Secours in Paris.
• The cover photograph shows Noizay, Poulenc's own country house in the Touraine region — the setting where much of his later work was composed.

Track Listing

1. Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant (version française) — 22:33 2–16. L'Invitation au Château — incidental music — 14:17 17–25. Léocadia — incidental music (includes Les Chemins de l'Amour — Valse chantée) — 13:23
2. The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant (English version) — 23:06

Publishers

Released by Naxos, catalogue 8.553615, © 2000 HNH International Ltd. Produced and engineered by Roy Emerson; artistic co-ordination by Alexandre Tharaud; French music notes by Isabelle Battioni.

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