Le Temps Des as

If we know Koechlin at all it is because he orchestrated Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande Suite and Debussy’s ballet Khamma. In that very superficial sense his standing is akin to that of Caplet. Rather like Chandos, Hyperion can be relied on for exalted artistic and production standards. It’s completely consistent with these exemplary principles that they have chosen Robert Orledge to document this disc and that full sung texts and sensibly lad-out side-by-side translations into English are set out in the booklet.

During the 70's, Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes recorded a string of stunning and successful albums, gathering a few plaudits and yearly awards from specialized press, played throughout Europe and even in Latin America and Northern Africa and are now seen as an iconic group of the hippy 70's in France. Their music is rather experimental and hard to define and involves folk, progressive and improvisation. Their use of seldom-seen percuphone and cosmophone (both alpine instruments), their lengthy Poème Non-Epique pieces, Ribeiro's anarchist avant-garde and ecologist lyrics and doomed atmosphere (there is some VdGG feel in their music) made this group a very distinct and very original group that has their own sound. In a similar vocal style to Brigitte Fontaine, Catherine Ribeiro's low voice tone may also evoke Nico at times and is theatrical and declamatory.

Extraordinary collection of Mouskouri recordings from many years. She sings in many languages, especially French, German, English, and her native Greek - and she makes all of them sound wonderful. In fact, she sometimes sings a song written in one language in another with intriguing effect: e.g., La Vie en Rose in German as Schau Mich Bitte Nicht So An. Many of the songs are very well known, such as Plaisir d'amour, Les trois cloches, Amapola, the Habanera from Carmen, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Love Changes Everything, Schubert's Ave Maria, &c. All are at least interesting, most are lovely.