Massenet: songs with orchestra II

22 Songs with Orchestra in world premiere recording

The mélodie with orchestra occupies a place in Jules Massenet’s catalogue that is by no means marginal. The composer orchestrated nearly forty of them between 1872 (L’Improvisatore) and 1912 (La Nuit).

With this second release of more than twenty mélodies for voice and orchestra by Jules Massenet, the Palazzetto Bru Zane concludes the complete recording of his pieces of this type, and continues its defence and illustration of the genre, begun exactly ten years ago. It was on the occasion of a festival devoted to Camille Saint-Saëns that the editorial team of the Centre de musique romantique française unearthed some thirty works by him for this combination, forming a rich and colourful corpus that few musicians or musicologists had previously identified. The song with orchestra – which in France still came down to no more than a few examples by Duparc and more especially Berlioz – took on a new aspect and aroused renewed interest.

Our research then continued with the gradual resurrection of dozens such pieces by Gounod, Hahn, Dubois, Guilmant, Godard, Jaëll, Bonis, Holmès, Thomas, Caplet, Vierne, Fauré and others. And it emerged that Massenet had not been not immune to the appeal of these lyrical miniatures either: more than fifty from his pen still awaited publication and recording. That mission has now been accomplished with the appearance of this disc.

Complete broadcast of the CD on Sunday 1st February at 9 pm on  Bru Zane Classical Radio

Recorded at the Opéra Normandie Rouen from 14 to 18 April 2025.