Disques

Retrouvez les artistes de l'association sur compact disc sous le label Anima-records.

Debussy – Mélodies – Philippe Cantor – Sophie Rives

http://vagnethierry.fr/claude-debussy-melodies-philippe-cantor/

À propos du disque Ravel : critique de Lynn René Bayley (fanfarearchive.com)

The voice on the recordings is not a full or rich one but one of very pleasant quality, excellent control of modulation, and a fascinating style of delivery. Rather than sing these songs in the “old” style of, say, Pierre Bernac, with no inflection or interpretation of words, Cantor sings them with the dramatic emphasis of a trained actor who happens to have a nice singing voice. … I have recordings of the Histoires naturelles by Gérard Souzay and Bethany Beardslee (and also songs Nos. 1, 2, and 4 by Jane Bathori), and to be honest, these performances are even better than theirs. Part of it is the extraordinarily high quality of the piano accompaniment by Sophie Rives, who is head and shoulders above Dalton Baldwin (Souzay) or Robert Helps (Beardslee) in the quality of playing and interpretation. But there is also Cantor, and he is quite simply extraordinary from start to finish.

Cantor and Rives, as a duo, are almost sui generis in this recital. Each one thinks, and breathes, and phrases with the other. It is the kind of singer-accompanist symbiosis so often sought but so rarely achieved that when one hears it done as well as this one thinks, “Oh yes, that’s just perfect” without always realizing how hard it is. Each song on here is a jewel, and every facet of those jewels has its own shade and light. And then there is the complete naturalness and unpretentiousness of their way of performing, as if the music just flows from their very essence and does not go through any filters of “drama” or “art song presentation.” I was delighted to read in the booklet that Cantor and Rives, as a duo, strive “to make the essence of the music alive by avoiding any pretentiousness or extreme sentimentality.” My kind of performers!

This disc is a marvel and a revelation. One could spend a paragraph describing how they perform each and every song, the subtlety of shading, the deep connection they have with their material. It is, quite simply, a great achievement to have performances of this quality available to be heard.