Mon amant de Saint-Jean
Stéphanie d’Oustrac (mezzo-soprano)
Le Poème Harmonique/Vincent Dumestre
rec. 2022, Tandem – Scène nationale-Théâtre d’Arras, France
Sung texts with English translations enclosed
Reviewed as download from press preview
Alpha Classics 988 [59]
The last century was the first to take an interest in the music of the preceding centuries, says Vincent Dumestre in the foreword to this issue, and he names pioneers like Wanda Landowska, Nadia Boulanger, Hugues Cuenod, Yvette Guilbert, Aristide Bruant, Gaston Dumestre and several others. This was long before the HIP movement, which gradually developed after WW2. One of the front-runners was August Wenzinger and his circle in Basel, but for the embryo we have to go back in time a couple of generations to around 1900; even they explored Monteverdi and his contemporaries.
The programme on this disc is based on a semi-staged concert recital, and is described by Dumestre as “the inner journey of a woman remembering her old loves and past career, recalling her youth and the songs of her provincial childhood, her successes in leading Parisian theatres, her unhappy passions, and her final repertoire of down-to-earth popular song.” The woman in question is created by Stéphanie d’Oustrac, a former Carmen with a world career, turned chanteuse with enormous charisma and expressivity. She is backed up by Le Poème Harmonique under Vincent Dumestre, an ensemble founded in 1998 and specialising in 17th and 18th century music – a natural companion for Monteverdi and that generation, but which works surprisingly well with the popular music of the previous century as well.
The programme is divided in three sections: “Jeunesse” (Youth), “Les vieux airs” (The old songs) and “Les amours passes” (The old loves). Readers scanning the list of contents at the end of the review may be excused if they do not recognize more than a couple of the composer names. Neither did I, but a little googling filled out some blanks. Ted Grouya, for instance, the composer of the opening song J’ai perdu ma jeunesse (I’ve lost my youth) was Romanian, studied with Nadia Boulanger and passed away in 2000, and everyone knows the hit song Flamingo, first recorded in 1940 by Duke Ellington and singer Herb Jeffries and later by legions of artists, including Earl Bostic, Caterina Valente and Charles Mingus. J’ai perdu begins softly; the melody is beautiful and is soon spiced with hefty syncopations. Then, without an interval, we are transported more than two centuries back to Marin Marais and the instrumental Les voix humaines, calm and timeless. Two anonymous songs follow seamlessly:, Dans mon Jardin à l’ombre (In the shade of my garden)and La fille au roi Louis (The daughter of King Louis), probably contemporaneous with Marais. The former is accompanied by a still-standing drone, but the singing is intense, as it is also in the latter; they are charming songs.
The second section, “Les vieux airs”, begins with an instrumental Canzona by Johann Vierdanck (ca. 1605 – 1646). He was German and spent his last eleven years as organist in Stralsund, which was then under Swedish rule. The Canzona is alternately calm and lively.
We are on more familiar ground in the next work – the only “standard” work in this programme – and the only surviving music from Monteverdi’s second opera Arianna from 1608. This aria, in which Arianna laments her beloved Theseus, is deeply moving, and Stéphanie d’Oustrac’s reading is intensively dramatic, reminding us that she started her career as baroque singer in the stable of William Christie in the 1990s. Her Baroque schooling also gets an outlet in an aria from Cavalli’s L’Egisto. Cavalli was the natural heir to Monteverdi, and some of his operas are still played.
In the third section, “Les amours passes”, we are back to where we started, the cabaret and popular song genres. Paul Marinier (1866 – 1953) was a singer-songwriter who appeared in and composed for cabarets in Paris. D’elle à lui (From her to him) was written for the legendary Yvette Guilbert and is sung in parlando style. Paul Delmet’s (1862-1904) chansons became very popular in the 1890s and continued to be so for several decades after his early death at the age of 42. As early as 1898 there were cylinder recordings made. Quite recently a French publisher managed to unearth his total oeuvre of 239 songs, almost 200 of which were totally forgotten. Les petits pavés (The cobblestones) was one of his first successes in 1891. It is a charmer and it is seductively executed. Little was found about Charles André Cachan (1896 – 1955) and Où sont mes amants (Where are my lovers) seems to be his only recorded song. More is known about Raymond Legrand (1908 – 1974), not surprisingly he was father to Michel Legrand, famous for his many film scores of which The umbrellas of Cherbourg probably is the best known. His father also wrote for the movies. He was a student of Gabriel Fauré and collaborated with names like Henri Salvador and Edith Piaf. Les nuits d’un demoiselle (A girl’s night in) was launched by Colette Renard in 1963 and belongs to the category risqué songs, since it deals with a woman’s sexual habits. Naturally, Stéphanie d’Oustrac sings it with her usual verbal acuity. With Léon Forsey (1829-1877) we return to the middle of the 19th century. He composed a couple of operettas and lots of minor pieces. Les canards Tyreliens (The Tyrolean ducks) isa hilarious song in which Stéphanie d’Oustrac indulges in both yodelling and high coloratura singing – highly entertaining! Le tango stupéfiant (The intoxicating tango) is similarly engaging but has a tragic background: all was happiness for three weeks for the chanteuse until one morning her lover dumped her, and to calm her grieving soul she injected morphine, sniffed some snow, starting the ball rolling … Henri Cor was the lyricist and Ralph Carcel wrote the music. The final song is also the title of the collection: Mon amant de Saint-Jean (My Saint-Jean lover). The story is the usual: she goes to a dance, falls in love with a guy who kisses her and she gives him “the best of [hersef]” – but now he no longer loves her. The text of “Let’s forget about it” is by Leon Agel and the music, a musette waltz, is by Émile Carrara (1915-1973). The song was launched in 1942 by Lucienne Delyle. She had many hits in the 1940s and 50s, but Mon amant de Saint-Jean was probably the greatest. It is also a worthy conclusion to this out-of-the-ordinary trip of nostalgia. Give it a listen – you won’t regret it!
Göran Forsling
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Contents
Grouya: J’ai perdu ma jeunesse
Marais: Les voix humaines
Anonnyme: Dans mon Jardin à l’ombre; La fille au Roi Louis
Vierdanck: Canzona en ut majeur
Monteverdi: Lasciate mi morire (Arianna)
Cavalli: Lasso, io vivo (L’Egisto)
Marinier: D’elle a lui
Delmet: Les petits pavés
Cachan: Où sont mes amants
R. Legrand: Les nuits d’un demoiselle
Forsey: Canards Tyreliens
Cor & Carcel: Le tango stupéfiant
Carrara: Mon amant de Saint-Jean
