British soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Roger Vignoles gave a recital of French chansons in Walter Hall on Monday night.  The concept was that the songs were paired; one being a setting of Baudelaire by a male composer and the other song by a female composer of the the same period.  With two exceptions all the composers were French and with one exception from roughly the fin de siècle.  So Duparc, Déodat de Séverac, Fauré Debussy and de Bréville were paired variously with the predictable; les sœurs Boulanger and Pauline Viardot, and less predictable; Mel Bonis, Marguerite Canal, Amy Beach (American) and Jeanne Landry (Canadian and much later).

Unsurprisingly there was a lot of langourous, quite beautiful tunefulness.  Baudelaire does that to people.  There was some contrast.  The CanCon; Landry’s “Mort quand tu me viendras prendre”, showed signs of a more robust lyricism but it was over almost before it had started.  Fauré’s setting of the extremely morbid (even for Baudelaire) “Chant d’automne” had some drama as did Duparc’s setting of “La vie antérieure”.  Viardot’s “Lamento – la chanson du pêcheur” had emotional depth and Canal’s “Les Roses de Saâdi” was livelier and allowed Bevan to let herself go a bit.  But, essentially all French, of a period and drawing from the same emotional climate.

The performances though were very good.  Bevan has a pleasing voice with great control and a fair range of colours.  She is obviously into this material, much of which she has recorded.  Vignoles is a master accompanist; one of the best and it showed.  I’d love to hear them in more varied repertoire.

Photo credit: Lucky Tang