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).

Continue reading →