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With nearly two dozen film soundtracks to his name, not to mention musicals and operettas, it is not surprising that Louis Beydts (1895-1953) has tended to be categorised as a composer of light music. Recordings of his other works are thin on the ground.
In researching the byways of French song, tenor Cyrille Dubois came across Beydts’s Chansons pour les oiseaux, his most highly regarded song cycle, and that led to further discoveries. The original plan was to record all Beydts’s mélodies, but with some scores not being available, Dubois settled on this single disc including the best of the song cycles.
The Chansons pour les oiseaux make a good place to start, a gentle evocation of life and death, good and evil, to elusive texts by Paul Fort. The music is redolent of Gabriel Fauré in its restrained poetry and beauty, though Fauré never stretched his singers to the stratospheric high notes that Dubois manages so elegantly here.
Among the other cycles are the dreamy D’ombre et de soleil, very much school of Fauré, the more overtly sensuous and harmonically adventurous Quatre Odelettes, and the playful Cinq Humoresques. Beydts rarely strays beyond his comfort zone, but overall there is sufficient variety.
Having won plaudits for his recording of the complete mélodies of Fauré, Dubois has found the ideal next step. He has risen to the top rank of interpreters of French song thanks to his exceptional sensitivity of style, and his regular accompanist, Tristan Raës, ensures immaculate teamwork.
★★★★☆
‘Louis Beydts: Mélodies and Songs’ is released by Aparté
