This recording from the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and their conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud contains 65 minutes of music; mostly written for the stage, though there are some songs for voice and orchestra.

The first set is based on the incidental music that Fauré wrote for an English language production of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande given in London in 1898.  There’s a four movement suite and a bonus in “Mélisande’s song” from Act III Scene 1 sung here by Tara Erraught.  It’s really tuneful, pleasant music that evokes the piece well.  I particularly liked the third movement  “Sicilienne” which features a wistful harp melody and the song which is sung with beauty and clarity.

The next set is excerpts from Prométhée, tragédie lyrique, Op. 82.  This was originally written for performance in an amphitheatre in Béziers which featured 800 assorted voices and instrumentalists.   This is the later, slimmed down version.  It’s much darker and more dramatic with Wagnerian influences.  The set includes a lament for the Océanides sung rather beautifully here by the ladies of the Chamber Choir Ireland and Gaia’s Air in which she warns her son that he has displeased the gods.  Erraught darkens her voice here and there’s rather dramatic brass accompaniment.

The third set features three songs for soprano and orchestra; which sound like late 19th century chansons (surprise!), plus the Tarantelle, Op. 10 No.2 which is a duet for two sopranos (Erraught and Ruth Rosique) which would not sound out of place in Act III of Carmen.  It’s rather fun.

The final set consists of six pieces from Shylock, Op. 57.  This is incidental music for a (apparently rather loose) French language adaptation of The Merchant of Venice by Edmond Haraucourt.  There’s instrumental music; some of which was originally played under dialogue, and a couple of songs sung quite dramatically here by tenor Julien Dran.  It’s pretty decent stuff with a real Venetian feel to it.

The recordings were made in the National Concert Hall in Dublin in 2023 and 2024 and in the hi-res (96kHz/24 bit) version I listened to are really excellent with both clarity and body and quite a wide frequency and dynamic range.  It’s also available as a physical CD, MP3 or CD quality digital.  There’s a booklet with excellent notes.  It also contains the texts but no translations.

All in all, it’s a generous ration of some really quite rewarding, rarely heard, Fauré.

Catalogue information: Naxos 8.574619