Much to Admire Songs by Berlioz, Chausson and Duparc - heard by GERALD FENECH '... Soile Isokoski interprets this unique repertoire with eloquence and mastery ...'

French mélodie has a very long history, but while it is fundamentally different from the German Lied which cannot be separated from popular song and poetry, it remains one of the most romantic and appealing in the genre. Born of the opera comique during the eighteenth century, by the middle of the nineteenth it had lost its vitality and romantic gloss, and it was left to Berlioz and his ilk to revive afresh this most delicate of musical art forms. Indeed, Berlioz understood that piano accompaniment did not suffice to support the expressiveness he had in mind, so he turned to orchestrating all six pieces of Les nuits d'été. Taken from an anthology by Theophile Gautier, the cycle was published in 1841 in its piano version...

HECTOR BERLIOZ

ERNEST CHAUSSON

FINLAND

VOCAL MUSIC

ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

FRANCE