M. Ravel - Lieder

The award-winning partnership of Gerald Finley and Julius Drake continue their musical explorations with this beautiful and thought-provoking disc. Gerald Finley�s lustrous tones, extraordinary gift for characterisation, and direct, unaffected utterance make him an ideal and revelatory performer of Ravel�s songs.These works, somewhat under-appreciated in the composer�s oeuvre, demonstrate the endless variety and vast emotional scope of Ravel�s musical sphere. Charming folk-song settings contrast with the almost surrealist world of Histoires naturelles, which caused outrage at its first performance. Yet this cycle contains some of Ravel�s most dreamily beautiful music: the still, crystalline �music of silence� created in Le martin-p�cheur. In the words of Roger Nichols, who provides the fascinating booklet notes, �From the sepulchral gloom of Un grand sommeil noir to the final exclamation �Je bois / a la joie� �, Ravel�s songs embrace a whole world�.