Product Description

This collection of the most popular French songs includes exquisite recordings of the piano accompaniments by pianist Gary Arvin, a specialist in song literature on the faculty of Indiana University. Includes translations and IPA pronunciation guides. The pronunciation lessons on the CD are from a native French speaker. Useful for high school contest soloists, college/university students and professional singers. Contents: Aimons-nous (Saint-Saens) * Apres un Reve (Faure) * Aurore (Faure) * Beau Soir (Debussy) * Chanson triste (Duparc) * Ici Bas (Faure) * La Procession (Franck) * Mandoline (Faure) * Nuit d'etoiles (Debussy) * Psyche (Paladilhe).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #451556 in Books
• Published on: 1996-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 72 pages

Customer Reviews

favorite french art songs
this book is a wonderful resource for a voice teacher, like myself, of a student looking to learn some standard french repertoire. The cd accompaniment is wonderful and I found most of the tempi to be accurate.

Nice sprinkling of French art song
For the younger singer, or the singer who is ready to explore the French repertoire, this is an appropriate book. Of course, I would be remiss if I advocated buying any book that includes CD accompaniments... but the fact is, in this day and age, this is becoming a valuable tool for both singers and teachers. Obviously, both of those groups of people should realize that a CD can never replace a real pianist/accompanist... but with accompanists' fees going higher (and justifiably so), it isn't feasible for some younger singers to bear the cost for sitting at home and running through the repertoire. The pronunciations are decent, though as with the German version of this series, a spoken text is never the same as the sung version; ending schwa vowels, for instance, which are never spoken, take on serious meaning in a musical context.

Kudos to Hal Leonard for this nice grouping; hopefully, they start offering comprehensive books with CD accompaniments based on composer, to give young singers an opportunity to explore the depth of complete works like song cycles.

Très Magnifique!
What can I say? I love this book! The songs are just beautiful.