Si J’ai Aimé

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This is utterly adorable from start to finish…In the booklet Piau speaks of her joy at performing this kind of repertoire and her rapture is palpable from the breathless opening moments of Saint-Saens’s... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2019, 5 out of 5 stars (Performance) / 4 out of 5 stars (Recording) More…

Release Date: 31st May 2019
Catalogue No: ALPHA445
Label: Alpha
Length: 59 minutes

Presto Editor's Choice

May 2019
Diapason d’Or

June 2019
BBC Music Magazine

August 2019

Choral & Song Choice
Presto Recordings of the Year

Finalist 2019
International Classical Music Awards

2019

Nominee - Vocal
Gramophone Magazine

December 2019

Critics' Choice
Presto Recording of the Week

20th December 2019
BBC Music Magazine Awards

2020

Finalist - Vocal
Gramophone Awards

2020

Winner - Recital

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Saint-Saëns: Extase (Hugo)

Work length3:42

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Saint-Saëns: Papillons

Work length3:23

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Bordes: Promenade matinale

Work length3:29

$1.00

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Berlioz: Au cimetière (from Les nuits d'été, Op. 7)

Work length5:17

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Massenet: Le poète et le fantôme

Work length3:32

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$1.50

$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Pierné, G: Chanson d'Autrefois

Work length1:59

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge

Dubois, T: Si j'ai parlé… si j'ai aimé

Work length2:48

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Berlioz: Villanelle (from Les nuits d'été, Op. 7)

Work length1:59

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Dubois, T: Promenade à l'étang

Work length3:13

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Vierne, L: Trois mélodies, Op. 11: Beaux papillons blancs

Work length1:31

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Duparc: Aux Étoiles

Work length4:44

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge

Guilmant: Ce que dit le silence

Work length3:13

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Dubois, T: Sous le saule

Work length2:44

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Saint-Saëns: Aimons-nous

Work length3:39

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Massenet: Valse très lente

Work length3:38

$1.00

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$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge

Saint-Saëns: L'Enlèvement (V. Hugo)

Work length1:53

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

Godard, B: Symphonie gothique, Op. 23: Grave

Work length5:44

$1.00

$1.50

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Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge

Martini, J P: Plaisir d'amour

Work length2:48

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Julien Chauvin, Le Concert de La Loge, Sandrine Piau

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About

Sandrine Piau’s first recital for the ALPHA Label, with Susan Manoff (Chimères – Alpha 397), proved an enormous hit (Diapason d’Or of the year, Choc of the year, and Gramophone Editor’s Choice). Her new project is a recital with orchestra celebrating French song of the period when it moved from the private salon to the concert hall. Planned in partnership with the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this programme evokes anticipation, desire, pleasure, memory, in short all the vagaries of love experienced by a romantic heroine… To verses of the poets Hugo, Lamartine, Gautier, and Verlaine, Sandrine Piau has selected song settings by Saint-Saëns (L’attente, Papillons), Massenet (Extase, Aimons-nous), and Vierne, as well as by the rarely-heard Dubois, Guilmant, and Bordes…

Julien Chauvin and his period instrument ensemble combine these songs with orchestral pieces (the Pavane de la belle au bois dormant from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, and Debussy’s Danse profane for harp and orchestra).

The disc also presents excerpts from Nuits d’Été by Berlioz, and ends with the famous classic Plaisir d’amour by Martini.

Reviews

August 2019

This is utterly adorable from start to finish…In the booklet Piau speaks of her joy at performing this kind of repertoire and her rapture is palpable from the breathless opening moments of Saint-Saens’s ‘Extase’. Soaring above the luminous timbres of Julian Chauvin’s period ensemble Le Concert de la Loge, Piau’s fresh-voiced delight infuses Berlioz’s Villanelle’, Vierne’s ‘Beaux Papillons blancs’ and Bordes’s affable ‘Promenade matinale’.

January/February 2020

This CD, a mix of the familiar but more of the unfamiliar, is an absolute winner. Piau sounds still in wonderfully youthful voice, full and steady. This CD is brim full of elegance and grace and she blends well with the orchestra who are right with her. The sound is excellent, well balanced, and clear, especially on the headphones. As ever with Alpha, this is a good production with a useful booklet and thankfully full texts and translations. For any passionate listeners of mélodies and Lieder, head to the shops immediately!

August 2019

With her silvery tone, immaculate sense of line and telling if understated way with words, Piau is very much at home in this repertory…[Chauvin and his orchestra] are outstanding throughout, unearthing subtleties in music that is often quite simply but always effectively scored. It’s a most engaging disc.

May 2019

The French soprano’s in lustrous voice on this almost indecently gorgeous album of orchestral songs with the period instruments of Le Concert de la Loge: Saint-Saëns’s butterfly flutters exquisitely, Charles Bordes’s Promenade matinale has a louche seductiveness worthy of Piaf, and the two songs from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été are thrown into fascinating relief by the tracks which surround them (Massenet’s Le poète et le fantôme surely shares its DNA with Au cimitière, and both are despatched with an uncanny beauty here).

20th December 2019

Undoubtedly one of the most enchantingly beautiful recordings I’ve heard all year: from the very first entry of Sandrine Piau’s exquisite voice in Saint-Saëns’s tender setting of Victor Hugo’s poem, Extase, I was completely captivated. Piau is given fantastic support from Julien Chavin and Le Concert de la Loge, including some nimble butterfly-effects from the principal flute in Saint-Saëns’s Papillons.

26th May 2019

With a bell-like, very French-sounding soprano and crystalline diction, Piau revels in a survey of orchestral songs that includes Berlioz’s Au cimetière and Villanelle, from Les Nuits d’été, and his orchestration of Martini’s Plaisir d’amour.

30th May 2019

Songs by Berlioz, Saint-Saëns and Duparc jostle with some unfamiliar gems by composers you’ve probably never heard of, in a programme of French miniatures that’s a pleasure from start to finish.

Opera Now September 2019

Piau has chosen songs with orchestra, from Berlioz to Massenet, with some lesser known composers in-between, such as Godard, Bordes and Dubois. The programme embraces the themes of Souvenir and Désir et Séduction and Piau’s soprano wafts, cajoles and caresses the phrases with a great variety of colours, from the fizz of champagne to a full-bodied red. She makes it all sound easy and has the art of seeming natural and spontaneous. Julien Chauvin conducts with an equally delicate touch.

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Si J’ai Aimé

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