Laurent Deleuil - Le travail du peintre (2020)

Guided by their common taste for painting at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, Laurent Deleuil and his accomplice Nicolas Royez take cross roads to explore the repertoire of melody. The starting point of this rare and delicate disc is Poulenc's collection composed in 1956 entitled Le Travail du Painter. Little played and recorded, these miniatures are based on seven poems by Paul Éluard taken from Voir (1948) celebrating the art of Picasso, Chagall, Braque, Gris, Klee, Miró and Villon in turn. In these games of correspondence between music and painting, which underlines the very beautiful libretto of the disc which appears on the label Chapeau l'Artiste, other composers are honored: Fauré and his Mélodies de Venise (1891) around poems by Verlaine on which the influence of Watteau hovers, Ravel of Natural Histories (1906) composed on animal portraits by Jules Renard, and finally the contemporary Quebec composer Denis Gougeon (born in 1951). "It seems important to me to defend the music of our contemporaries and, incidentally, Canadian music" insists Laurent Deleuil. This disc, which highlights a rare alchemy between voice and piano, is the very promising first joint production of the two performers, five years after their meeting at the Académie du Festival d'Aix-en Provence and their Francis Poulenc prize. during the International Competition for the Interpretation of French Melody in Toulouse. A voice and a tandem to follow closely.