Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Emile Vuillermoz

Karina Gauvin & Marc-André Hamelin

Atma Classique: 2642
Track details and samples at http://www.allmusic.com/album/fte-galante-w264045

A reissue of an outstanding recital of French song which seems to have largely escaped notice in UK at its first release (1999).

Karina Gauvin is a gorgeous French-Canadian soprano and she is ideally patnered by her compatriot Marc-André Hamelin, best known for his assaults on the most virtuosic of the piano repertoire, including his own Etudes. But in a recent chamber concert at Wigmore Hall he "went on to steal the show with his subtle accompaniments in a miscellany of Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Duparc and Chausson song. - - One marvelled at how expressive Hamelin can make a single note sound on the piano".

It was indeed Hamelin which drew my attention to this disc, but on this occasion he did not "steal the show", as Gauvin is a superbly equipped singer, vocally and interpretively, with a wide expessive range and fine French diction. ..."

I find that she did appear in Wigmore Hall last year in a Handel concert; I shall look out for her return as recitalist.

Peter Grahame Woolf