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Debussy: C'est l'extase - La mer

Vannina Santoni (soprano), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mikko Franck

Debussy: C'est l'extase - La mer

Awards:

Vannina Santori, 36, releases the odors and textures of Verlaine’s verses with her mellow, lyrical, textured voice. There’s no posturing, no phony pear-shaped stuff, but rather a natural narrative...

Debussy: C'est l'extase - La mer

Vannina Santoni (soprano), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Mikko Franck

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This release includes a digital booklet

Stream now Hi-RES 48 kHz, 24 bit

Awards:

Vannina Santori, 36, releases the odors and textures of Verlaine’s verses with her mellow, lyrical, textured voice. There’s no posturing, no phony pear-shaped stuff, but rather a natural narrative...

About

Debussy's song cycle Ariettes oublieesof 1888 set six poems from Paul Verlaine's collection Romances sans paroles, beginning with C'est l'extase and Il pleure dans mon coeur - penetratingly poetic images of love's ecstasy and rainlike tears of despair. The six Ariettesare the departure point for the arrangement realized in 2012 by British composer Robin Holloway in response to a request from the San Francisco Symphony. Holloway has altered their order while adding a further four Debussy songs, binding the whole work together with brief orchestral links and a feverish epilogue, 'con moto agitato'. This world first recording is given by French soprano Vannina Santoni, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under the baton of Mikko Franck. The Finnish conductor, a great admirer of Debussy, here also presents the master's bewitching masterpiece La mer, first heard in Paris in 1905.

Contents and tracklist

I. De l’aube à midi sur la mer
Track length8:50
II. Jeux de vagues
Track length6:50
III. Dialogue du vent et de la mer
Track length8:36

Spotlight on this release

Awards and reviews

  • Presto Editor's Choice
    June 2023

Jan/Feb 2024

Vannina Santori, 36, releases the odors and textures of Verlaine’s verses with her mellow, lyrical, textured voice. There’s no posturing, no phony pear-shaped stuff, but rather a natural narrative lyricism with a subtle range of expression, vowels that enhance the word at hand…equally rapturous is Mikko Franck’s French Radio Philharmonic with Holloway’s Ravelian orchestration.

June 2023

The main event here is the world premiere recording of C'est l'extase, which sees Robin Holloway weaving his own orchestrations of the Ariettes oubliées and four related mélodies into a rich and iridescent tapestry, his short idiomatic interludes providing the connecting threads. Santoni is every bit as luminous as Renée Fleming (who premiered the work), and Holloway's postlude segues seamlessly into an unsettling beautiful account of La mer.
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