Anne Sofie von Otter - La bonne Chanson: French Chamber Songs (1996)

This album of French songs leads with its strength, an incredible rendition of Maurice Ravel’s “Three Poems of Stephen Mallarme.” The ten-minute long trio of songs was finished in 1913 and marks Ravel’s furthest reach into the direction of atonality. Like many other composers of the time, he stepped back afterwards and spent the rest of his life writing more traditional, often deliberately retrospective music. Despite the experimentalism, the Mallarme songs are very recognizably from Ravel’s hand, and form a fascinating and adventurous extreme of impressionist music.

Perfectly suited for this sleek, silken music, Von Otter has given us an amazing version of the Poems. Her voice floats above the chamber ensemble providing the rustling accompaniment. For example, the conclusion of the second song, “Futile Plea,” is done wonderfully, the sound being almost jewel-like in its precision. Von Otter’s ability to shape the Poems’ subtle melodic line also testifies to her feel for the music. I compared the Von Otter with another very successful rendition of the “Three Poems,” by US soprano Dawn Upshaw in her compilation disc “The Girl with the Orange Lips.” As good as Upshaw’s performance is – and it is very good – Von Otter attains an even higher level. This Ravel set may be the peak of her distinguished career.

The rest of “La Bonne Chanson” contains some successes and some failures, although none quite on the level of the Ravel Mallarme Poems. The collection covers a wide variety of music. I very much enjoyed Frank Martin’s wonderful “Three Songs of Christmas,” written in 1947 and the most recent of the music here. Von Otter also provides an attractive “Four Hindu Poems” (1913) from Maurice Delage, an artist who is something of a one-hit wonder, known exclusively for this song group. The earliest work is a single song from Camille Saint-Saens, “The Invisible Flute” a delicate and I thought very fine effort from the older composer. Capping the disc is Gabriel Faure’s song cycle “La Bonne Chanson”, in its second version with instruments added by the composer in an expanded accompaniment. Although I am a big Faure fan, this song cycle has always perplexed me. Whatever I think, Von Otter does some very beautiful and focused singing here.

Two works here didn’t do it for me. Ernest Chausson’s “The endless song” is a late romantic song (1898) which has never struck me as that composer’s best work and Francis Poulenc’s “Rapsodie negre” (1918) is an odd bit of juvenalia.

Von Otter’s performance is very strong throughout. She really is at the peak of her powers here, and parts, such as the Ravel and the final Frank Martin song, “The Shepherds”, are brilliant and remarkable. Her long-time accompanist, Bengt Forsberg, works with a good group of instrumentalists to suppoer Von Otter. Audio sound quality is very good.

This is a terrific disc. It seems to be somewhat overlooked. Even a fan of French music like myself was unaware of it until recently. But it is an outstanding recording marked by a superb rendition of Ravel’s most adventurous piece.