Poulenc: Figure humaine; 7 Chansons; Un Soir de neige

On this CD:

1. Sept chansons, for chorus, FP 81
Composed by Francis Poulenc
Performed by Jean-Francois Chiama, Paul-Alexandre Dubois

2. Figure humaine, cantata for 12 voices, FP 120
Composed by Francis Poulenc
Performed by Violaine Lucas

3. Un soir de neige, chamber cantata for 6 voices (or chorus), FP 126
Composed by Francis Poulenc

Customer Reviews:

Transcendent Performances; Minor Distortion at High Volume.......2003-11-06

I recently heard and reviewed my first CD by Accentus, a French chamber choir founded in 1991 by Laurence Equilbey. This was the CD on Naïve called 'Accentus Transcriptions,' a disc of music originally written for other forces but transcribed for unaccompanied choir. I was blown away by their sound. Obviously Mlle Equilbey is a terrific choir-builder. There is absolute uniformity of sound from top to bottom; the core tone never splays or becomes grainy at any dynamic level. Intonation is laser-like. Diction is perfection. I had only one quibble with that disc--there was some distortion at high volumes, and since the dynamic range on the disc was very wide it was hard to avoid that distortion at very loud spots.

That CD spurred me to buy this one, and I am simply thrilled with it. Again, there is slight(er) distortion at very high dynamic levels. But for the most part it is not present, particularly when you take care to set a moderate volume.

As to the music and the performances, I can't say enough positive about them. For one thing, unlike other non-French choirs that have recorded these pieces, this choir _understands_ what they are singing. The CD contains Poulenc's major secular a cappella works. His a cappella music is extraordinarily difficult to sing well. The block-like chording can lull one into relaxing one's guard but then one finds that the harmony has side-slipped or that one is having to tune awkward intervals with little preparation. It is rare, in performance, for one of these pieces to end at precisely the pitch on which it began. Clearly some members of this choir have spot-on perfect pitch because this does not happen at all in these performances. This is not something one can always say for other crack chamber choirs like John Eliot Gardiner's Monteverdi Choir or Harry Christopher's The Sixteen.

The major work here is a cantata, the so-called 'Figure Humaine' (probably best translated as 'The Face of Mankind'), to poems written secretly during the German occupation of France during World War II by Poulenc's self-admitted favorite poet, Paul Éluard. Poulenc, too, wrote the cantata in secret and it wasn't premièred until after the War. It begins with Éluard's cry of despair, 'Du tous le printemps du monde/Celui-ci est le plus laid...' ('Of all springtimes in the world/This one is the vilest...') and ends with one of the a cappella masterpieces of this or any century, 'Liberté,' in which Éluard recounts all the things on which 'I write your name' (on exercise books, trees, stones, jungles, plains, bread, lakes, wings of little birds, on fruit cut in two, on my dog, on window panes, on naked solitude, on health regained...) culminating with 'Et par le pouvoir d'un mot/je recommence ma vie./Je suis né pour te connaître/pour te nommer./ Liberté.' ('And by the power of a word/I start again my life./I was born to know you/to call your name./ Liberty!') The cumulative power of this song ends with the sopranos singing an E above high C. In most performances this comes as a shriek. Accentus's sopranos make it electrifying music.

The other songs here include the early 'Sept chansons,' to poetry of Éluard and Guillaume Apollinaire; it's a brief folk-tinged collection of songs with titles like 'La blanche neige' ('The White Snow') and 'Belle et ressemblante' ('Beautiful and Familiar') and the set, also written during the War to poetry of Éluard, 'Un Soir de neige' ('Snowy Evening'). Particularly moving is the final song, 'La nuit le froid la solitude' ('The Night, The Cold, The Solitude') with the concluding line 'Le froid vivant le froid brûlant m'eut bien en main' ('Cold so alive, so intense, I can never escape'). Dare I say, it's chilling!

The only drawback to this CD is its short timing, only 39 minutes. But I have to say that the intensity of the experience is such that if one listens to it straight through, one could hardly withstand any more.

Strongly recommended.

Scott Morrison

Terrible Recording Quality.......2003-09-10

The major work on this album is Francis Poulenc's Figure Humaine, a choral piece composed during the Nazi occupation of France. It is painful to see a work of such beauty ruined by poor sound quality. Feedback and noise are present on every crescendo, and the softer moments are hard to pick up. It's difficult to judge the singers' voices objectively in this situation, although their rhythm and diction is excellent. For such an epic work, the poor sound quality is a crippling problem. I would recommend another recording.