The small label La boîte à pépites investigates the music of women composers, all of them so far from France. Introduced by appealing cover drawings, they explore a single composer in depth, often devoting more than one volume to the same figure. Here, Jeanne Leleu is featured on the first volume of what is to become a multi-volume series. The songs and chamber music here are early works, but they already reveal a distinctive voice from Leleu, who, as a child piano prodigy, gave the world premiere of Ravel's Ma mère l'oye and won the Prix de Rome in 1923 for her cantata Béatrix. There is little evidence of contemporary trends, but neither is Leleu's music derivative of anyone else's. The opening Quartet for violin, viola, cello, and piano has a lovely quiet and lyrical tone sustained over its three movements. Perhaps the highlights are the Six Sonnets de Michel-Ange ("Six Sonnets of Michelangelo"), which also exist in an orchestral version; they receive standout performances from soprano Marie-Laure Garnier, who is agile in catching the turns Leleu brings to the sonnet form. The finale En Italie piano pieces are colorful programmatic works, never obvious. Pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid and the other performers deliver clean readings, keeping in mind the label's goal of putting the composer at the center of each release. One anxiously awaits further volumes devoted to Leleu, who wrote a good deal of music in larger forms.© James Manheim /TiVo

As of the fall of 2004, the only significant Jacques Brel title in print in the U.S. was Verve Records' 16-track 1988 compilation Master Serie (although, of course, many imports were available to Americans through mail order). That suggested the time was right to bring out a new collection, and DRG has licensed the 40-track, two-CD 2003 Universal International album Infiniment ("Infinitely") for domestic release. In France, and among Brel aficionados, it is the subject of some controversy because of the inclusion of five previously unreleased songs -- "La Cathédrale (The Cathedral)," "L'Amour Est Mort (Love Is Dead)," "Mai 40 (May 1940)," "Avec Élégance (With Elegance)," and "Sans Exigences (Without Emergencies)." The five were recorded at the sessions for Brel's final album, Brel, in September/October 1977, but not included on it. Eddie Barclayof Barclay Records was once quoted as saying of them, "Jacques didn't want them to come out and so they won't be released." Yet, here they are, with an ambiguous disclaimer by Brel's musical collaborators François Rauber and Gérard Jouannest: "The following titles ('With Elegance,' 'Without Emergencies,' & 'Love Is Dead') are unfinished songs which Jacques Brel and we, ourselves, would like to do over. The reason for which has not been divulged." It may be that they mention only those three of the five tracks because the musical backing for them is particularly sparse, usually only a keyboard instrument or two far in the background. For the average American listener who knows Brel from "If You Go Away," "Seasons in the Sun," and the musical revue Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, however, the effect of the inclusion of the unreleased songs may have more to do with sequencing than content. The new material is right up front on the first disc, just after Brel's version of "La Quête (The Quest)" (aka "The Impossible Dream" from Man of la Mancha), and the effect is to reverse the usual running order of a compilation, beginning with the artist's later material, when his singing is deeper and more mannered, rather than his earlier recordings. Also, it means that an American won't hear a familiar melody until the 12th track of CD one when "Quand On N'A Que L'Amour" (translated here as "When We Have Only Love," but more commonly known as "If We Only Have Love"), one of Brel's biggest hits, begins. After that, as Thelma Blitz's liner notes put it, the rest of CD one and all of CD two "are a crème de la crème 'best of' covering the span of his career." DRG has helpfully provided literal translations of the French lyrics, which non-French-speaking Americans familiar only with the Rod McKuen and Mort Shuman/Eric Blau adaptations will find illuminating, since they demonstrate that those English lyrics range from accurate equivalents of Brel's meaning to fairly broad revisions. Of course, Brel's own interpretations of his songs remain definitive, and in these sonically improved recordings he comes across with all his dramatic, compelling power intact.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo