Search - Gérard Souzay, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy :: Gérard Souzay Sings Ravel, Debussy, Chausson, Duparc

A great singer is fading away

L. E. Cantrell | Vancouver, British Columbia Canada | 12/08/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At about the same time that recording companies were profitably supporting a "rivalry" between Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, they were stirring up a similarly profitable competition between Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gérard Souzay. Imagine it, once there was a time in which money could be made from singing lieder!



Souzay, was born as Gérard Marcel Tisserand in 1918. He attended the Paris Conservatoire from 1940 to1945. In 1944, while still a student, he made his professional debut and his first two recordings. He did a limited amount of operatic work, even essaying the role of Don Giovanni, but his true field of operation was song. His opera career is represented on CD by memorable performances of "Manon" (with Beverly Sills) and "Pèlleas et Mèlisaunde," but his recorded songs from 1944 to 1987 number about 750 in at least fifteen different languages. He died in 2004.



I first became aware of Souzay more than forty years ago when a singer-friend suggested I try him when I got weary of Fischer-Dieskau. At the time I wondered how anyone could tire of the great German baritone. Not very long after that, of course, I found that I could bear the sound of the excellent but ubiquitous and damnably too-familiar sound of DF-D no longer. Gérard Souzay was an instant curative. To this day, it is Souzay's voice I hear in my mind when I think of the lieder of Schumann and Schubert. In French art song, Souzay was simply without rival.



I find to my dismay that the memory of this great French performer is fading. Amazon still lists 45 of his titles on CD, but only 22 of them are still in print (or whatever the proper term should be for a recording.) As I write this, only 13 of the 45 titles have attracted Amazon reviews and, worse, only seven of his solo CDs have been reviewed. This is more than dismaying; it's downright ominous. The memory of a wonderful talent seems well on its way to oblivion, to the sad diminishment of us all.



In January 2000, an unnamed Amazon reviewer wrote this of Souzay, "In these performances he surpassed Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in a number of respects -- sheer style, beauty and range of tone, naturalness, depth of expression". Yeah.



Five stars!"

Great Singer in Peak Form but . . .

Mr. Barry Smith | Adelaide, SA Australia | 06/21/2010

(1 out of 5 stars)

"
This disc was a great disappointment for me. While it contains some of the most beautiful songs from the French repertoire, lovingly interpreted by Gerard Souzay, the CD transfer was rather 'dry' with significant distortion when the dynamics were put to test. I was surprised, as the Testament label is known for its many fine remasterings of older recordings. However, potential purchasers should look elsewhere for examples of this fine baritone's work."