Credits:

Cyril Dubois, Quatuor Valois, Jens McManama, Mario Boriero, Jeff Cohen (Piano)

Description:

This two-CD set, highly recommended for lovers of modern French music, features songs and chamber works by Alfred Brunot (1857-1934), a French composer whose popularity has been growing steadily in recent years. The old-fashioned songs are based on poems by Andr Chenier, the poet who died in the French Revolution and is best known for his operas in Giordano’s operas. I never knew there was such a wonderful modern French song! The songs are so beautiful that they are almost too beautiful to be true. The accompaniments are modest, as the old-fashioned style implies, but this makes the songs even more sublime. The same tendency can be heard in “Outdoors,” a collection of songs on poems by Thophile Gautier. Both are sung with extreme softness and French softness by Cyril Dubois. A Night in May” is a work with harp and string quartet