Mélodies Françaises José Van Dam, Jean Philippe Collard

The music on this 2-disc set and its companion 'Vol 2' set is among the loveliest chamber music you can find anywhere, at least to my mind. Most people know Faure for his gentle 'Requiem,' but anyone wanting to explore the melody-rich world of late 19th-century French Romanticism can't go wrong with these recordings. All of this music is utterly non-flashy and breathtakingly beautiful, never cloying or oversweet like so many works of this period. Faure, an essentially old fashioned guy, was a consummate craftsman and an imaginative melodist.

In the music of Erik Satie, the sublime and the ridiculous reside in such tantalizingly close proximity that it's useless to try to separate them–which may, after all, be the point. For example, what can one say about 'Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear' other than there are really seven of them and regardless what fruit they may sound or look like they comprise a set of dances as disarming as any in piano literature? Fortunately, the case is well made in the performances of Pascal Rogé and Jean-Philippe Collard, who bring just the right balance of lightness and weight, wit, and beauty and plainness to the music.

Faure's outpout for the piano is prodigious, but the intensely introspective nature of his music has eluded performers and audience alike. Thankfully, pianists like Collard have made this music available to the public. Collard's Faure is buoyant, lyrical, youthful and therefore somewhat straight forward, yet it is an approach that rescues this music from sentimentality, especially in those written during Faure's early period. For example, when compared to Paul Crossley, whose Valses-Caprice stretches rhythmic freedom beyond good taste, Collard's no-nonsense reading brings out the vitality of these exquisite pieces. If you like Chopin already but are not familiar with Faure, this would be a good introduction.

This is the second of Herbert von Karajan's three versions of this symphony for Deutsche Grammophon, and it's a very nice one. Karajan always did well by the orchestral portions of this symphony, playing them sort of like proto-Bruckner. In the finale, as in his 1963 recording, he seems to prefer a very light, backward-balanced choral sound that will not appeal to those who believe that Beethoven meant the words to be heard. That reservation aside, this performance can be recommended as typical of Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in top form.

The performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony by "Emperor" Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker on October 21, 1979 was broadcast live nationwide from the venue on NHK. was broadcast on FM. This recording is the first digital recording of NHK, a historic one, and was handed down as a masterpiece of the peak of both Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic. The tremendous concentration invites listeners into an overwhelming impression. This time, the world's first CD release of this famous performance has been realized! At the time of its release, the latest remastering technology that Deutsche Grammophon boasts has been used to improve the sound quality astonishingly, and it has been revived.

For all its exotically tinged, trademark Orientalism, so fashionable in late-19th-century France, Delibe's opera Lakmé is at heart a simple story of tragically misplaced love. This marvelous and sensitively wrought interpretation renders the intensity of that love story with a surprising emotional credibility. Conductor Michel Plasson allows the music's arching melodies to breathe and unfold leisurely, like a lovingly cultivated floral display; he even discovers hidden nuances within the formulaic fluff that pads Delibe's score. And his vision is shared by the outstanding principals here. As the titular Hindu princess, Natalie Dessay gives a jewel-like performance, full of stunningly shaped phrases and tapered notes that sound like spun silk (and one that can favorably compare with Joan Sutherland's account on London).

This is one of the greatest chamber CDs, bringing together Chausson's timeless Concert with his elusive String Quartet in the most beautiful, idiomatic performances imaginable. Augustin Dumay and Jean-Philippe Collard have never been bettered as a duo, but they particularly are in their element in this music, given its full expression by their passion and strength, which combines with a sense of style that is as natural as speech.