The disc is worth getting for the Liszt; throw in the Holmès and de Grandval and you have a winner – le vase brisé from Thomas Elwin & Lana Bode

le vase brisé: Hahn, Augusta Holmès, Liszt, Duparc, Lili Boulanger, Sir Paulo Tosti, Clemence de Grandval, Pauline Viardot, Bellini; Thomas Elwin, Lana Bode; VOCES8 Records
Reviewed 26 February 2025

A debut recital that combines an imaginative programme, undeservedly neglected repertoire and strong performances in challenging music such as Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets. A fine achievement indeed.

Tenor Thomas Elwin and pianist Lana Bode‘s new disc, le vase brisé on Voces8 Records, takes as its title a song by the French composer Clemence de Grandval. But the image of a broken vase ultimately offers, however, the promise of healing, or of repair and the artists’ thoughts evidently turned to the Japanese art of kintsugi, the practice of repairing the cracks in broken pottery with gold (or silver, or platinum) in order that the repair is both obvious and beautiful. As such, the item is not ruined – or compromised – but actually improved. And the booklet article by Dr Lucy Walker is headed by a quote from Menachem Mendel of Kotzk (the ‘Kotzker Rebbe’) – “There is nothing so whole as a broken heart”.

The disc is notable for the imaginative selection of song encompassed with works by Reynaldo Hahn, Augusta Holmès, Liszt, Duparc, Lili Boulanger, Sir Paulo Tosti, Clemence de Grandval, Pauline Viardot, and Bellini. The composers’ lives straddle nearly the whole of the 1800s; the earliest song is Bellini’s La Ricordanza (1834), the latest Hahn’s A Chloris (1916).

Thomas Elwin is best known recently for his operatic work, he was a fine Gennaro in English Touring Opera’s production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia in 2023 [see my review, I missed his Rodolfo in La Boheme with them, alas] and Alfredo in a filmed production of La Traviata with Opera Glass Works. Plus he was artistic director for West Green House Opera’s 2024 season [see my review of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville]. This disc is his debut recital disc, and represents a remarkable engagement with the art of song, going beyond the traditional opera singer’s song repertoire and including some real rarities.

We begin in the security of the familiar with Hahn’s A Chloris, rendered subtly unfamiliar both by the move from female to male voice and by Elwin’s remarkable sense of line, giving it a real sculptural strength along with an slight and rather engaging catch in his voice.

But from here we move to real rarity territory with a pair of songs by the Irish-French composer Augusta Holmès, a composer whose vigorous Lisztian orchestral tone poems were seen as certainly not proper territory for a woman. Au bois dormant from Paysages d’Amour, is an uplifting song, full of joys the love-drunk lovers, whilst her Nocturne is more influenced by Faure, a gentle piano over which Elwin’s line evokes calm. Then comes ‘Benedetto sia’l giorno’ the second of Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets. The original settings date from 1839, for high tenor and piano, though Liszt would compulsively revise them. In their first form they date from when Liszt was living in Italy and we can sense Bellinian bel canto filtered through Liszt’s imagination, something that Elwin and Bode bring to all three Petrarch settings spread across the disc

In ‘Benedetto sia’l giorno’ there is a youthful impulsiveness to the performance, and a real mix of the idea of an Italian song and Bellinian bel canto with moments of operatic passion, though quickly reined in. Elwin and Bode make sure that this is a song. Elwin has a bright and focused top, and is completely fearless so that the high notes thrill but have control to them too. No desperation here. This is allied to that sculptural quality to his line that I mentioned earlier.

In Duparc’s Extase, the ecstasy is very concentrated with a beautifully spun vocal line allied to Bode’s poetic piano, rich but this is definitely ecstasy held back. Holmès’ Pareil a la mer profonde from Vingt Melodies has a rather memorable vocal line unfolding over a gently throbbing piano, the result touching yet with occasional low rumbles from the deep. The first of Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets, ‘Pace non trovo’ is perhaps the most operatic. After a very Lisztian introduction, a dramatic recitative leads into an aria where pure poetry in the piano complements the rather operatic shape of the vocal line, rhapsodic and expansive, and again Elwin is wonderfully fearless with top notes of real quality.

We then move to Lili Boulanger for a pair songs. Both settings of Maeterlinck poems, they were composed at the same time as she was working on her opera La Princesse Maleine, also to a text by Maeterlinck, but unfinished at the time of her early death in 1918. Attente mixes richly evocative harmonies with an intimately confiding tone, whilst Reflets is more sombre, yet engagingly touching. Sir Paolo Tosti wrote approachable songs for singers both amateur and professional. His best songs have engaging tunes yet require a firm technique. They get that here, as Elwin revels in the lovely long lines of the song, and makes us enjoy it too.

Clémence de Grandval studied with Flotow (of Martha fame) and Chopin, her family’s money meaning she did not have financial concerns and presumably her husband, the Vicomte de Grandval was complaisant. Le vase brisé is a lovely song, rather touching in its lyric melancholy and certainly full of imaginative touches. Another woman composer comes next, Pauline Viardot, born in France of a Spanish musical family and steered into an operatic career on the death of her sister, Maria Malibran. Viardot’s compositions are starting to come out of the closet. Villanelle is a strophic song, the lyric melancholy of vocal line spun out over a rocking piano. Not complex, but engaging and definitely worthy of including in a recital.

Duparc’s Soupir sets a poem by Sully Prudhomme that continues the melancholy theme. Elwin unfolds a finely moving line over Bode’s delicate piano. As an idea of compare and contrast, they follow this with de Grandval’s setting of the same poem. De Grandval is more ardent, and less concerned with structure so her music follows the shape of the text.

We move back to Italy for the next song, this time Bellini and his song La Ricordanza, written in 1834 setting a poem by Carlo Pepoli who wrote the libretto to Bellini’s final opera, I Puritani. Here we have the sense of Bellini boiling his ideas down for the salon, full of engagingly long-breathed lines. We come to the final of the three Liszt sonnets, ‘I vidi in terra angelico costumi’, and we can see the linkage between the two, but Liszt is not concerned with the salon and the results are complex and challenging for the performers. Here, Elwin and Bode sound entirely within Liszt’s world, finding poetry in the rhapsodic effulgence. Finally, Duparc’s Chanson Triste returns us rather to the emotional world of the opening, but in some way transformed.

The recital is designed to take you on an emotional journey, from bliss to loss to emotional acceptance, yet within this are some imaginative touches when it comes to repertoire including three premiere recordings. I found that I worried less about the emotional journey and simply relaxed into enjoying the songs in performances which make you want to get to know the unfamiliar ones better and which do more than justice to the unfamiliar. The disc is worth getting for the Liszt, and throw in the Holmès and de Grandval and you have a winner.

le vase brisé
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1847) – A Chloris
Augusta Holmès (1847-1903) – Paysages d’Amour: No. 3, Au bois dormant
Augusta Holmès – Nocturne
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) – 3 Sonetti del Petrarca, S.270a: No. 2, Benedetto sia’l giorno
Henri Duparc (1848-1933) – Extase
Augusta Holmès – Vingt Melodies: No. 15, Pareil a la mer profonde
Franz Liszt – 3 Sonetti del Petrarca, S.270a: No. 1, Pace non trovo
Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) – Attente
Lili Boulanger – Reflets
Paolo Tosti (1846-1916) – Non t’amo più!
Clemence de Grandval (1828 -1907) – Le vase brisé
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) 10 Mélodies: No. 5, Villanelle
Henri Duparc – Soupir
Clemence de Grandval – Soupir
Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) – La ricordanza
Franz Liszt – 3 Sonetti del Petrarca, S.270a: No. 3, I vidi in terra angelico costumi
Henri Duparc – Chanson Triste
Thomas Elwin (tenor)
Lana Bode (piano)
Recorded at Champs Hill, on 27-29 November 2023
VOCES8 VCM161D 1CD [66:0]