Secrets - French Songs

The Guardian 80

Crebassa/Say
(Erato)

French mezzo Marianne Crebassa’s delectable French collection ranges chronologically from four of Duparc’s songs to late Fauré. But the disc ends with a bonus in the shape of Gezi Park 3, by her pianist Fazil Say, composed as a tribute to the violently suppressed protests in Say’s native Turkey in 2013. It’s a wordless Turkish lament, with an increasingly feverish piano accompaniment that works to a fierce climax.

Crebassa lavishes just as much care on Say’s vocalise-like lines as she does on the songs in her native language. Every one is compelling; from the opening moments when she wraps such velvety tone around Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis, her range of tone and nuance is exquisite. Even in Ravel’s Shéhérazade, with the multicoloured orchestration replaced by piano (except for a solo flute in the central song), there’s no lack of exotic colour or variety. Best, perhaps, are the four settings of Renée de Brimont that make up Fauré’s Mirages in which Crebassa and Say conjure up the perfect world of evocation and mysterious suggestion.