If you love French mélodie, if you love Debussy and Fauré, you absolutely must listen to this album on the Aparté label devoted to Gabriel Dupont! Dupont, who died of tuberculosis at the age of 38 on the eve of the First World War, had a strong talent, sometimes compared to that of Debussy. Sadly, the Great War and its upheavals in the European cultural fabric relegated Dupont to historical oblivion, but the strength of his inspiration managed to maintain his occasional presence in a niche repertoire.
This release by the exceptional duo of Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano) is likely to raise Dupont’s standing in the minds of music lovers a notch higher, and that’s a very good thing.
Dupont is a fascinating creator of sensations, thanks to powerful melodies despite their simplicity. A simplicity that is far from banal, but without lapsing into tortuous obtuseness. What emerges from this music is an unvarnished sincerity, conveyed by a discursive ease that is modestly but beautifully ornamented.
Cyrille Dubois makes this repertoire his own with conviction. His perfect diction, his deeply sincere emotional characterisations (on superb texts by Verlaine, Richepin, Klingsor, Musset, etc.), Raës’s finely impressionistic pearled piano, the natural, intimate sound recording – all these details make this one of the finest lyric recital releases of the year. A little marvel. An album of rare emotional and artistic power.
