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Adèle Hugo: Mélodies sur des poèmes de Victor Hugo
Karine Deshayes (soloist), Sandrine Piau (soloist), Isabelle Druet (soloist), Anaïde Apelian, Laurianne Corneille, Axelle Fanyo (soloist), Thomas Saulet, Anaïs Constans (soloist), Laurent Naouri (soloist), Sophie Paul-Magnien, Orchestre Victor Hugo, Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon, Jean-François Verdier
The pieces show Adèle’s flair for melodic invention and bear the influence of the Hugos’ musical acquaintances. Traces of Liszt, Berlioz and Bertin are clearly audible...Top-rate singers, led...
Adèle Hugo: Mélodies sur des poèmes de Victor Hugo
Karine Deshayes (soloist), Sandrine Piau (soloist), Isabelle Druet (soloist), Anaïde Apelian, Laurianne Corneille, Axelle Fanyo (soloist), Thomas Saulet, Anaïs Constans (soloist), Laurent Naouri (soloist), Sophie Paul-Magnien, Orchestre Victor Hugo, Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon, Jean-François Verdier
Purchase product
The pieces show Adèle’s flair for melodic invention and bear the influence of the Hugos’ musical acquaintances. Traces of Liszt, Berlioz and Bertin are clearly audible...Top-rate singers, led...
About
This album pays homage to the composer Adele Hugo (1830-1915), the fifth child of the great poet Victor Hugo. Suffering from lifelong psychological instability, she spent half of her tragic life in mental institutions, from the age of 42 until her death aged 85. Hers was an exalted and sensitive temperament; she became passionately fond of music from an early age, studying the piano and then composition. Her musical manuscripts were recently rediscovered, and the Director of the Victor Hugo Museums in Paris and Guernsey entrusted them to composer Richard Dubugnon, so as to research and reconstruct the jigsaw of these often quite fragmentary scores, which had been lying forgotten for more than a century. What has emerged is a set of fourteen of her songs on poems by Victor Hugo and verses taken from his great novel Les Miserables, as well as five songs without words. Appropriately, the Orchestre Victor Hugo and its Music Director Jean-Francois Verdier have been involved in the project, and they invited Dubugnon to orchestrate the pieces, presented here by a multi-generational team of leading singers.
Contents and tracklist
- Anaïde Apelian, Laurianne Corneille
- Axelle Fanyo (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo
- Jean-François Verdier
- Thomas Saulet, Laurianne Corneille
- Anaïs Constans (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo
- Jean-François Verdier
- Anaïde Apelian, Laurianne Corneille
- Laurent Naouri (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo, Chœur de l'Opéra de Dijon
- Jean-François Verdier
- Sophie Paul-Magnien, Laurianne Corneille
- Axelle Fanyo (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo
- Jean-François Verdier
- Anaïs Constans (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo
- Jean-François Verdier
- Anaïde Apelian, Laurianne Corneille
- Axelle Fanyo (soloist)
- Orchestre Victor Hugo
- Jean-François Verdier
Awards and reviews
January 2025
The pieces show Adèle’s flair for melodic invention and bear the influence of the Hugos’ musical acquaintances. Traces of Liszt, Berlioz and Bertin are clearly audible...Top-rate singers, led by Anaïs Constans and Axelle Fanyo give deeply expressive performances, perfectly enunciating every syllable.
January 2025
The vocal line-up is classy...Best of all is Axelle Fanyo, passionate and declamatory throughout, so that the greatness of the poetry itself really hits home.
21st November 2024
The composer Richard Dubugnon has orchestrated 14 of her songs, and his instrumentations lend an idiomatic, sometimes colourful, often mellow slant to some appealing melodies.