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Vocal Discoveries

Ensemble Vox ad hoc, Tobias Frank

Format: Digital

Marcel Dupré is one of the greatest virtuosos of French organ music; as a student and later successor of Widor, he led the great tradition of French organ romanticism into modern times. Tobias Frank and his ensemble Vox ad hoc present a previously completely unknown side of Dupré: vocal works with piano or organ accompaniment, solo or purely a capella, which until recently lay modestly and largely unnoticed in the archives of the French National Library. Marcel Dupré grew up with choral music: his father's choir rehearsed weekly in the living room of his childhood home. And so his earliest compositions were characterized by what he heard there: Bach, but also Beethoven and Rossini are unmistakably present in the Prélude from 1901, which precedes op. 1 of the entire collection of these jewels. Most of the predominantly secular choral compositions were written during Dupré's student years. On one hand, they are a reflection of that time, not least through the choice of often mythological or patriotic subjects. The exoticism that was popular in the late Belle Époque is also reflected, for example, in the Danse orientale. The program offers interesting color changes because some songs are performed by soloists - the solo part of the Vocalise-Étude is performed by saxophonist Christian Segemehl. Later, these are mainly occasional works until his final composition, the very personally colored Souvenir, an a capella vocalise "Andante nostalgico" from 1970. Tobias Frank has probably devoted himself more than anyone else to Dupré's oeuvre - for more than 20 years he has been researching the untapped legacy of the composer, to which he has almost exclusive access thanks to a personal relationship. It is fascinating to hear the unity of this succession of such varied works on this SACD, which follows Dupré's compositional path - certainly also a result of the personal dedication that can be heard in every note.

Reviews

"All without exception excellent singers who sing real choral music and not soloistically, almost without vibrato, thus conducted quite instrumentally. They unite into a lively, very stable, robust, as it were steel-bright and luminous choral sound, the articulation is very flexible, so that the always moving, always lively and vibrant choirs are filled with this joie de vivre... Everything is captured by the sound direction in the Himmelfahrtskirche with excellent spatial precision and an excellent sound balance between piano and choir." (Klassik Heute)

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Tracklist

01 Cantata La Vision de Jacob: Prélude pour piano solo, WoO 03:49
02 Les Normands pour choeur & piano, Op. 1 (arr. Tobias Frank) 06:51
03 Choeur du printemps pour choeur & piano (arr. Tobias Frank) 04:24
04 Crépuscule pour choeur de femmes & piano, WoO (arr. Tobias Frank) 05:36
05 Cantique de Racine pour choeur & orgue, WoO (arr. Tobias Frank) 05:17
06 Danse orientale pour choeur de femmes & piano à 4 mains, WoO (arr. Tobias Frank) 04:04
07 La Source pour choeur & piano à 4 mains, WoO (arr. Marcel Dupré) 03:44
08 Soir sur la plaine pour choeur & piano à 4 mains, WoO (arr. Marcel Dupré) 04:12
09 Juin pour choeur & piano à 4 mains, WoO (arr. Marcel Dupré) 03:15
10 Le Glaive pour ténor & piano, Op. 3 (arr. Tobias Frank) 05:34
11 Noël de France pour choeur a cappella, WoO (arr. Tobias Frank) 05:30
12 Vocalise-Étude pour saxophone & piano, WoO 03:12
13 Concours d'Harmonie pour orgue, WoO (arr. Tobias Frank) 02:57
14 Mélodie pour Marcelle Perroux pour soprano & piano, WoO 02:22
15 Tantum ergo pour baryton solo, choeur & orgue, WoO 02:37
16 Panis angelicus pour choeur & orgue, WoO 03:28
17 Deux motets, Op. 53: No. 1, Memorare, o piissima Virgo pour voix & orgue 02:33
18 Deux motets, Op. 53: No. 2, Alma redemptoris mater pour choeur & orgue 02:50
19 Souvenir pour choeur a cappella, Op. 65bis (arr. Tobias Frank) 02:54