DANAË VLASSE - Poème - Songs of Life, Love and Loss (2020)

The simplicity – but depth – of the underlying emotion [in Hugo's Demain, dès l’Aube] calls out Vlasse’s best setting on this CD. The performance of this song, and of all the others, is very fine, with Hila Plitmann, a strong advocate of contemporary vocal music, lending her interpretative skill as well as her vocal flexibility to all the material. All the piano accompaniments by Robert Thies are handled sensitively and with understanding. In two songs, Un Lendemain and Sérénade de Verlaine, Plitmann is joined by a second soprano, Sangeeta Kaur, whose voice complements Plitmann’s well; in the latter of the two-soprano songs, there is also a telling part for cellist John Walz, who underlines and emphasizes a key moment of the music."