Search - Marie-Joseph Canteloube, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Jeffrey Tate :: Kiri Te Kanawa - Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne, Villa-Lobos: Bachianas brasileiras

LUSH AND PASSIONATE!

William Bucko | Mt. Clemens, MI United States | 03/09/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These traditional songs from the Auvergne region of France, arranged and orchestrated by Joseph Canteloube, are so intensely beautiful that when I requested a classical radio station to play some of them, motorists stopped on the highway to phone in their thanks.I first heard a selection of these songs 30 years ago, performed by Anna Moffo, and fell in love with them. It's wonderful to find a complete recording of all 5 series on this 2 CD set, sung by Kiri te Kanawa with enormous talent and verve. Whether the mood is passionate, playful, mocking, tender, mournful or-an emotion few composers have ever captured-helpless with pleasure, these pieces have one thing in common: they are the work of a master orchestrator at the height of his powers, using the fullest resources of the modern orchestra. You will not find more beautiful music than this!"

Simply Sublime

Good Stuff | 02/26/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What is it about these wonderful songs that tend to bring out the best in some of the world's finest sopranos?There are so many fine recordings of these songs. The great Frederica Von Stade recorded a quite mesmerizing selection of the Auvergne songs at about the same time as Dame Kiri. There is the lovely recording by the legendary Victoria De Los Angeles, a selection of the songs many of us grew up on.
There is the seminal first complete recording (and then some, as I recall) by the late Natania Davrath, a much under-appreciated artist who, in many ways, is responsible for the popularity these songs enjoy today. Even Anna Moffo recorded a lovely handful of the songs in the 60s conducted by no less than Leopold Stokowski!And then there is Dame Kiri. We know her. We love her. We have come to expect the best from her. We have come to always expect more from her, in fact, than from just about anyone else.So unfair. We expect her to jump the musical hurdles of our emotional connections to music and art in a way we expect from few others.And yet she so seldom disappoints. Is this the absolute best recording of the Chants d'Auvergne ever? Such a personal choice. Who is to say?I can tell you this, once I heard this truly remarkable set, which has literally sent chills up my back since the the first time I heard it all those years ago, I knew my search for the recording of these songs I would keep near me forever was over.Here is an interpretation combining, in equal measure, patrician elegance with almost peasant-like eloquence. She renders song after song, some deceptively complicated, with a divine simplicity that simply defies the imagination. I don't know how Dame Kiri achieved this miraculous feat. It must have come from the heart, because it certainly goes to mine.And finally, it would be unthinkable not to give credit to the exquisite playing of the English Chamber Orchestra and the always sensitive collaboration of conductor Jeffrey Tate."

Appealing 2-for-1

danielinyaracuy | 07/19/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a Penguin Guide and Gramophone recommendation, and also one of Dame Kiri's best discs. Unfortunately (and this is why I give it 4 stars not 5) this was one of the early Decca Doubles before they started including texts and translations. This may not bother you, but if it does you can download the texts (although with the Canteloube settings being in heavy Auvergne regional dialect, and Villa-Lobos ones being in Portuguese -not a popular language in classical music- that may not help everyone!). Also worth considering Maria Bayo's Villa Lobos on Erato."