Apart from the five numbers by Duparc that are woven into the sequence, none of the songs that Véronique Gens includes in her latest all-French recital are especially well known. Chausson’s Sept Mélodies Op 2 are an early set, composed while he was still a pupil of Massenet, but already in thrall to Wagner, though the later Le Temps des Lilas is more familiar in its orchestral version as part of Chausson’s cantata Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer.
The songs by Reynaldo Hahn seem to have been chosen to demonstrate that his music is not just about charm and elegant superficiality; Néère, which opens the disc and provides its title, has a grave, austere beauty that Gens captures perfectly, while Trois Jours de Vendange, which traces the course of a love affair to its tragic ending, is haunted by the Dies Irae motif. Pianist Susan Manoff touches in such details with wonderful tact. But then nothing in these performances is overdone; Gens allows the lyric beauty of each song to speak for itself, with the minimum of interference and the maximum of tonal beauty.
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