Green

In his second album of French song from the 19th and 20th centuries - following the ground-breaking Opium, released in 2009 - countertenor Philippe Jaroussky explores settings of poems by Paul Verlaine (1844-96). Verlaine has duly inspired many French composers - from his contemporaries, such as Debussy, Faure, Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Chabrier, through the following generation (Honegger and Varèse) to songwriters from the 1940s-1970s, including Georges Brassens, Charles Trenet and Leo Ferre. The album takes it's title from one of the poems in the collection Romances sans paroles ('Songs without words' - the musical connection again). Verlaine himself gave it an English name, 'Green', and there are no fewer than three settings in Jaroussky's recital - by Debussy, Faure and Andre Caplet, the latter best known for his orchestrations of Debussy piano music.For Green, Philippe Jaroussky and Jerôme Ducros are joined by distinguished guest artists Nathalie Stutzmann and the Ebène Quartet.