Invitation to travel through Fauréan melodies with Stéphane Degout

The baritone Stéphane Degout and the pianist Alain Planès offer us a rich panorama of the melodies of Gabriel Fauré, with five major cycles including The Good Song And The Chimerical Horizon. An invitation to travel, darker and arid than it seems.

The centenary year of the death of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) could not be imagined without a tribute to the immense melodist that he was. The genre of melody, very popular in French salons from the mid-19th century until the dawn of the 20th century, accompanied Fauré throughout his life. He composed around a hundred, including his first opus The Butterfly and the Flower (1861), written at the age of 16, until the testamentary cycle The Chimerical Horizon op. 118 (1921), composed at the age of 77. So many little pebbles strewn, an intimate thread of Fauré’s life where dreams and doubts, anxieties and joys, worldly classicism and harmonic daring mingle.

The great French baritone Stéphane Degout and the pianist Alain Planès invite us to explore this existence through a copious anthology of five cycles of melodies. Juvenile Poem for a day op. 21, composed in 1878, at the beginning of Fauré’s career, until the tragedy The Chimerical Horizonpassing through the delicious cycle The Good Song op. 61 on poems by Verlaine, but also the lover Walled garden op. 106 or even the symbolism of Mirages op. 113.

We know Stéphane Degout as a great opera singer, with a broad tone and perfect diction. These are the same qualities that we find in this recording where the ample breathing and the power of the singer give Germanic colors to Fauré’s melodies which perhaps do not require so much. The qualities of Stéphane Degout could therefore also appear as a fault, the intimism of Fauré sometimes requiring more humility in tone. We remember the tenderness and polish of Gérard Souzay’s old recordings in this same repertoire. Stéphane Degout takes us to a darker and arid country, which can be justified in the tragedy of the last melodies, but less in the nostalgic sweetness of the Walled garden.

Alain Planès, on a Pleyel “Grand patron” piano from 1892 with its muffled sound, reveals himself to be much more than an accompanist in these ever-changing and complex scores. Like the formidable Ballad for piano op. 19, in the middle of the program, which even Franz Liszt had difficulty taming…

This anthology, by offering five major cycles of melodies by Gabriel Fauré, stands out first of all for the relevance of its program. But the demanding interpretation of Stéphane Degout and Alain Planès will undoubtedly disconcert fans of a more “amiable” Fauré. To be listened to in small bursts.

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Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Poem of a Day op. 21, The Good Song op. 61, Ballade for piano op. 19, The Closed Garden op. 106, Mirages op. 113, The Chimerical Horizon op. 118. Stéphane Degout, baritone; Alain Planès, piano. 1 CD Harmonia Mundi. Recorded in May 2023 at Royaumont Abbey (France). Presentation notice and poems in French and English. Duration: 60:21

Harmonia Mundi