Sandrine Piau, Susan Manoff - Après un rêve (2011)

French soprano Sandrine Piau has a light, silvery voice that she deploys with unmannered gracefulness and that's ideal for the gentle, nocturnal tone of the songs she selected for Après un rêve. She made her early career in music of the Baroque and she has gone on to expand her repertoire forward into the 21st century. The purity and focus of her tone that serves so well in Baroque repertoire gives her performances of these songs, mostly post-Romantic in style, along with a few 19th century and modern selections, a penetrating clarity. Her ability to spin out seamless legato lines with broad Romantic sweep, and the sensitivity and expressiveness of her interpretations are especially evident in the three very early songs of Richard Strauss and the songs of Chausson and Fauré. Mendelssohn is rarely remembered as a song composer, but the four lieder recorded here demonstrate his gift for distinctive, memorable songs that wouldn't be mistaken for Schubert's or Schumann's. Poulenc's rambunctious Hyde Park and Fêtes galantes demonstrate Piau's nimbleness and gift for humor. His poignant wartime song, C, is especially effective in Piau's moving performance, which manages to be both passionate and reserved. Galgenlieder, a cycle by contemporary French composer Vincent Bouchot has an elegance and harmonic and melodic straightforwardness that make it fit well with the lyrical aesthetic of the album. Susan Manoff, Piau's frequent collaborator, plays the accompaniment with fluidity and nuanced musicality; their history together is evident in the easy give-and-take of their performances. Naïve's sound is clean, clear, and beautifully balanced. Piau may not be an international superstar, but her exemplary performances make this an album that should appeal to fans of lyrical, sumptuous vocal music.