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Tue, 01 Mar 2005

Canteloube, Chants d'Auvergne

Joseph Canteloube, Chants d'Auvergne
Veronique Gens
Orchestre National de Lille
Jean-Claude Casadesus
LP, Naxos

Just the other day your correspondent (that's me) was walking through the main square of Lille on the way to a nice cafe in the old town. Lille, in the North of France, and where the orchestra comes from, is a long way from the mountains of the Auvergne, where the songs come from. Cantaloupe's treatment of these songs is also a long way away from that heard in those rustic quarters, so there's a nice symmetry about the thing.

Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) was born in the Auvergne but moved to Paris. During WWII he was involved with the Petain government working on reviving the folk songs of the area. The result is a pretty set of songs with very much, as you'd expect, a Romantic setting with an orchestra drifting sinuously in and out of the actual singing. This, incidently, is very nicely handled by Veronique Gens. (Count K)

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