Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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The fourth and final installment in a complete edition of Debussy songs might not seem to be a chartbuster, but that's just what this release by British soprano Lucy Crowe has become, and it deserves every bit of its success. In fact, you might even pick this one over the other three if you're looking to sample Crowe's approach: the program is exceptionally well put together, and it begins with Debussy's first published song, Tragédie, of 1881. There are several other early songs, giving insight into the young Debussy's romantic life as well as hints of the musical language to come and some real experiments (you could sample the Rondel chinois). From there, the program proceeds to later music but is not strictly chronological: instead Crowe leads you onto a path of extremely quiet songs wherein Debussy challenges the soprano to reside in her upper register, and Crowe meets the challenges beautifully. The tension is remarkable, with just a single piano solo and a pair of songs to Debussy's own texts (Nuits blanches, or Sleepless Nights) with baritone Christopher Maltman to break it. The music broadens out with some later songs, ending with Debussy's swan song, Noël des enfants qui n'ont plus de maisons, of 1915. The contributions of pianist Malcolm Martineau are substantial; he produces some truly eerie sounds in the quieter pieces. Highly recommended and often haunting.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

Hyperion’s excellent Debussy song series has evolved over the years from what was originally a stand-alone recital by Christopher Maltman and Malcolm Martineau, released in 2003 (5/03). In Vol 2 (6/12), with Lorna Anderson and Lisa Milne, Martineau added the major cycles for female voice, while Vol 3 (11/14) found Jennifer France and James Rutherford tackling Debussy’s settings of Théodore de Banville and Paul Bourget. The latter included some of the recently discovered early songs, written between 1880 and 1884, for Marie-Blanche Vasnier, and a further selection of Vasnier songs, 15 in all, dominates the latest volume, outstandingly sung by Lucy Crowe. France joins her for ‘Chanson espagnole’ for two sopranos; Maltman returns for the brief 1898 cycle Nuits blanches.

Throughout, we gradually become aware of Debussy’s original voice emerging from his response to disparate influences. Some of the Vasnier songs clearly started out as fashionable display pieces in exotic or Orientalist mode. The melismas that pervade ‘Rondel chinois’ and ‘Flots, palmes, sables’, the latter scored for piano and harp, are reminiscent of Delibes’s Lakmé, though the chromatic harmonies are already strikingly adventurous. There are three settings of Théophile Gautier, of which ‘Coquetterie posthume’, all emotional ambiguity and bittersweet irony, is the best. More important here, though, are the early Verlaine settings, some of which Debussy later revised or rewrote. The original ‘Fantoches’ ends with a coloratura passage of considerable difficulty. The first ‘En sourdine’, meanwhile, is exquisite, and deserves to be better known. Crowe and Martineau also include the ravishing ‘Beau soir’, published in 1891 (we don’t know when it was written) and close with Debussy’s last song, ‘Noël des enfants qui n’ont plus de maisons’, written shortly before his cancer surgery in 1915, and angrily inveighing against the depredations of war.

In wonderful voice throughout, Crowe very much makes this repertory her own. Ascents into the stratospheres are all beautifully and securely accomplished, and those long melismas are tautly controlled and always expressive, never vacuous. Textual awareness and understanding shine through in the elegant wit of the Verlaine songs and in the reflective if intense Mallarmé setting ‘Apparition’, among the last songs Debussy wrote for Vasnier. She and France are delightful together duetting in parallel harmonies in ‘Chanson espagnole’. Maltman sounds forceful and anguished in Nuits blanches, usually regarded as an adjunct to Golaud’s music in Pelléas, though its murky, Sadean eroticism – Debussy wrote his own text – steers it closer, perhaps, to the eventually unfinished La chûte de la maison Usher. Martineau, who has been the series’ presiding genius, is a flawless Debussy interpreter, meanwhile, playing with infinite subtlety, nuance and colour. Exceptional.

Review by Tim Ashley, Gramophone

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Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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Lucy Crowe, Malcolm Martineau - Claude Debussy: Songs, Vol. 4 (2018)

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