'Les Nuits D'Ete' Op. 7: II - Le spectre de la rose
'Les Nuits D'Ete' Op. 7: III - Sur le lagunes
'Les Nuits D'Ete' Op. 7: IV - Absence
'Les Nuits D'Ete' Op. 7: V - Au cimetiére (Clair de lune)
'Les Nuits D'Ete' Op. 7: VI - L'île inconnue
'Sheherazade': I - Asie
'Sheherazade': II - La flûte enchantée
'Sheherazade': III - L'indifférent
The most important thing to remember about Les Nuits d'été is that there's only one quick song and one moderate one to balance out three long, slow ones. Although the work is not a cycle in any coherent sense,... more » most performers do the pieces in Berlioz's final order: the quick one first, then the three slow ones, then the moderate one. This makes for a very long middle. Norman's rich, dark voice might be thought a bit heavy for this particular order, but she has another card up her sleeve: Her singing is so gorgeous that one simply forgets about time and just drowns in the tone. Ravel's exotic oriental song cycle provides just the right pick-me-up after the Romantic excesses of the Berlioz. --David Hurwitz« less
The most important thing to remember about Les Nuits d'été is that there's only one quick song and one moderate one to balance out three long, slow ones. Although the work is not a cycle in any coherent sense, most performers do the pieces in Berlioz's final order: the quick one first, then the three slow ones, then the moderate one. This makes for a very long middle. Norman's rich, dark voice might be thought a bit heavy for this particular order, but she has another card up her sleeve: Her singing is so gorgeous that one simply forgets about time and just drowns in the tone. Ravel's exotic oriental song cycle provides just the right pick-me-up after the Romantic excesses of the Berlioz. --David Hurwitz
CD Reviews
The Special Luxury of Jessye Norman in her Prime
Grady Harp | Los Angeles, CA United States | 05/17/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Jessye Norman has been stunning audiences with her voluptuous voice and stage presence for over thirty years now and while she continues to take on new challenges of contemporary premieres along with the operatic demands of, say, Judith in Bartok's 'Bluebeard's Castle' and Jocasta in Stravinsky's 'Oedipus Rex" etc, there are those of us who still hold her songs with orchestra, such as the dignified beauty of Strauss' 'Four Last Songs' and her sensuous reading of the French repertoire, as the gold standard.
This recording was made in London in 1979 and has been reissued here with only a change of cover. In collaboration with Sir Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra the fresh and young Norman gives special insights to Berlioz' "Les Nuits D'été" of 1843 and Ravel's "Shéhérazade" of 1903. Norman's voice has never sounded more fresh nor her French more exquisite. She is able to shimmer the softest pianissimo and the fullest forte without strain, factors that help make these two song cycles so unique in the literature. Davis provides understanding support with lush orchestral sound.
This is a recording that is a must for those who love Jessye Norman's voice and for those who appreciate the special beauty of these two French song cycles. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, May 05
"
Just the facts.....and a hope
paul pirate | New York, New York | 06/10/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The rating is simply to fulfill amazon's requirement (we should have the option for a neutral "review"). My comment is more a response to David Hurwitz's comment concerning the Berlioz than a review of the Norman (which I have not heard).
First of all - there are SIX songs in "Nuits d'ete" - This error does no credit to the rest of the review.
Second - Even if one believes that this is not a "cycle" (I would argue somewhat in favor of its being one), the problem with every recording of this work is that the keys get changed around to suit the singer's needs --
Except one: the 1970s recording of orchestral songs, (not yet Sir) Colin Davis at the helm of the LSO, and FOUR singers tackling the songs: Frank Patterson (2), Josephine Veasey, John Shirley-Quirk, and Sheila Armstrong (2). Indeed, Berlioz not only changed some of the keys for the orchestral version, but specified different voices for the songs.
While this "authentic" version would be tough to pull off in the modern concert hall or the star-driven recording (such as Norman's, or Crespin's, rightfully considered the highwater recording for this piece as soloist's cycle), it is incredible to have the Davis-plus-quartet version; if nothing else, this is what Berlioz heard in his own head. Each singer adds his or her style and sound to the piece; what might sound like "a long middle" is less so, and Shirley-Quirk's "Sur les lagunes" is one of the great "melodie" performances I know. I also like the total involvement of Davis - he is a great "accompanist," and I hear his Berlioz identification at its strongest. Some more recent recordings have overbalanced singers, buried orchestras, or just plain lack of ensemble between soloist and accompaniment--as if all the lessons of the LP era could be lightly tossed aside.
I don't know if the 1970s Davis ever made it to CD - perhaps in one of those large Philips sets, although the outer packaging of these boxes can be uninformative. For now, if you can find the LP (6500 009 a/k/a SAL 3789) and still have a record player (is to laugh?), procure, put away any preconceptions, and listen to "Nuits" anew."
Ravishing readings from Norman at her very best
Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 09/24/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Jessye Norman took up residence in Paris and has an affinity for French music. Here we get one of the most gorgeously sung recordings of Berlioz's Nuits d'Ete imaginable, rivaled on the operatic scale only by Leontyne Price (and Norman's French is better). the amazing control of the voice, its enchanting tone and great power all come together under Colin davis's relaxed but effective conducting. (David Hurwitz has reached a new low in irresponsibility by not even coutning the number of songs--six--correclty. He's supposed to know something about music?)
Just as beautiful is Norman's account of Ravel's Scheherazade.
Economical buyers should be aware that this album is included in a budget two-fer that includes a recital of French chansons with piano, also highly recommended."
GRANDS DESIRS APAISES
DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 12/23/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Many musicians' great longings ought to be appeased by this record, I should say. I already owned two performances of Berlioz's great Nuits d'ete, by Veronique Gens and Janet Baker and therefore, shall we say, not exactly without merit. However here is the opportunity to hear the songs sung by one of the greatest voices, one of the greatest singers, and one of the greatest executant musicians of the entire 20th century. This is Jessye Norman in 1979, at the height of her powers, and for good measure she treats us to Ravel's rather elusive Sheherazade as well.
It seems to me that no great purpose would be served by plodding along comparing details of style and interpretation among the three great artists whose versions of Nuits I am privileged to own. If I may take a short cut, I have myself offered reviews of my previous two sets of the work, and when it was only a matter of comparing Baker (my later acquisition) with Gens my review of the Baker/Barbirolli performance sharing a 2-disc set with Romeo and Juliet says anything I have to say on the matter. I don't feel like comparing Jessye Norman with anyone because for me she is so uniquely marvellous. I would not want to be without any of these three accounts, but if it were a desert-island situation with only one available to me, then this would have to be the one. I notice incidentally that this disc may be rather hard to find, and I recall a performance of this very work that Jessye Norman gave in Manchester to a pitifully small turnout of worthy burgers who would have been battling for seats to hear the Messiah for the 20th or 50th time and performed by anyone at all. If you are not content to go on missing it, you will hear this mighty voice in all its glory at, for instance, `j'arrive du paradis' in the second song, Le Spectre de la rose. A voice from paradise indeed, and in general adequately served by the recording. The volume-range is rather wide, and I found that I needed a fairly high setting, which I had to notch back a little at the point I just referred to. There is just a touch of crackle at some of the bigger moments, but nothing that worried me.
Colin Davis is of course an eminent specialist in Berlioz, but I don't believe I have ever heard him before now in Ravel. I felt his contribution here to be excellent, and the special effect of setting two brilliant but very different orchestral masters cheek-by-jowl like this gives this disc an extra dimension of interest. I don't altogether know what to make of Ravel's Sheherazade, largely because I'm not sure how seriously we are meant to take the texts of the three poems. The answer to that might be different for each of the three of course, and the liner-note writer suggests that Ravel at least was tongue-in-cheek in the second song `The Magic Flute' about the young woman married to an ugly old guy and fascinated by a comely young flautist. That would fit my own general image of Ravel, whether it is right or not. About Tristan Klingsor I know nothing whatsoever and I have to suppose the name is a pseudonym. For all I know he might be in dead earnest in the last poem, but its treatment of frustrated homoerotic yearnings is so ooh-la-la and pouvez-vous that I can hardly credit Ravel with taking it entirely seriously.
Where I always take Ravel seriously is in his attempts to see what music could be made to do with some texts that are, on the face of it, unpromising from a musical point of view. That is what he seems to be about here, and the liner-note offers us a few hints. The first song is, for me at least, the most challenging to understand, and Ravel thinks the text important enough to set it to 10 or 11 minutes of music. From Ravel's own remarks quoted in the liner we would be quite within our rights to infer that this flight of imagination into the Lands of the Fabled Orient is quite literally what it purports to be. We should perhaps be on our guard, we who travel by air, against seeing any irony in the misty Kismetish romantic ideas of travel that many people, poets and composers among them, quite undoubtedly nurtured 100 years ago. The same caution should restrain us from applying modern ideas of appropriateness and `correctness' to what are bound to come over as rather wince-making proclamations along the lines of `oh look at those oriental people, aren't they so oriental.'
Anyway, it is rather good music, and not music that enthusiasts for Ravel hear every day of the week. It is also performed for us by Jessye Norman, and I probably have said what I want to say about that. This part of the disc gives no problems at all with recorded sound, and the liner-note tries to be helpful and succeeds at that up to a point. Why Jessye Norman's great Nuits d'ete has failed to strike the chord with the public that it strikes with me I would not be knowing, but there seem to be a few copies available, and of course there is the intriguing filler of Sheherazade as well. Does it all sound appealing?"
Track Listings (9) - Disc #1