The French soprano Patricia Petibon is known for recordings with ambitious, original programs, spaced several years apart. This is one of her most ambitious, and one of her best, even if some might find it a bit outrageous. Petibon approaches the French art song of the late 19th and 20th centuries from the perspective of popular song, suggesting that the boundary is blurry (noncontroversial in itself), and adding a few songs by Léo Ferré, the vastly underrated older contemporary of Jacques Brel. Where things start to get wild is not with the inclusion of popular songs, or even with the heavy emphasis on the music hall rhythms of songs going back as far as Gabriel Fauré. Rather, it's the forces and their shaping that startle: Petibon adds strings, accordion, and percussion to the music at will, connects songs with interludes improvised by the performers based on piano pieces by Erik Satie, several of whose works also appear in full, and generally plays fast and loose with the musical text, all while circling through a variety of moods at the same time as she moves forward through time. If you're looking at the track list and thinking that what you're getting is a set of French songs interpreted in the conventional way by a young soprano, you might want to steer clear. But if you're open to it, this album is both revelatory and hugely entertaining, and it's a fair bet that Satie and Poulenc, at least, would have loved it.© James Manheim /TiVo

The French soprano Patricia Petibon is known for recordings with ambitious, original programs, spaced several years apart. This is one of her most ambitious, and one of her best, even if some might find it a bit outrageous. Petibon approaches the French art song of the late 19th and 20th centuries from the perspective of popular song, suggesting that the boundary is blurry (noncontroversial in itself), and adding a few songs by Léo Ferré, the vastly underrated older contemporary of Jacques Brel. Where things start to get wild is not with the inclusion of popular songs, or even with the heavy emphasis on the music hall rhythms of songs going back as far as Gabriel Fauré. Rather, it's the forces and their shaping that startle: Petibon adds strings, accordion, and percussion to the music at will, connects songs with interludes improvised by the performers based on piano pieces by Erik Satie, several of whose works also appear in full, and generally plays fast and loose with the musical text, all while circling through a variety of moods at the same time as she moves forward through time. If you're looking at the track list and thinking that what you're getting is a set of French songs interpreted in the conventional way by a young soprano, you might want to steer clear. But if you're open to it, this album is both revelatory and hugely entertaining, and it's a fair bet that Satie and Poulenc, at least, would have loved it.© James Manheim /TiVo

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Josquin Desprez, princeps musicorum, the prince of musicians, as his contemporaries called him, is best known today for his sacred works, the masses and motets, which have been widely performed and recorded. Surprisingly, his chansons have received little attention from performers, except for the pieces for five and six voices, printed after his death by the Antwerp publisher Tilman Susato in his seventh book of 1545. Doulce Mémoire has chosen to focus on the chansons for three and four voices, which are probably the earliest in the Hainault master’s output; with their diversity of language and themes (sometimes folk-derived), these songs constitute a varied programme that is at once serious and bawdy, a testament to the unequalled art of Josquin Desprez. © Ricercar

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In the wake of his blockbuster album Mon Paradis, which was among the best-selling French albums of 2007, folk-pop singer/songwriter Christophe Maé released the live CD/DVD package Comme à la Maison. The live concert featured on Comme à la Maison was recorded on June 18-19, 2008, on a beach in the south of Corse, a French island in the Mediterranean Sea, and includes Maé and his band accompanied at times by a gospel-style choir, accordionist Régis Gizavo, and singer William Baldé of "Rayon de Soleil" fame. The 14-song performance compiled on Comme à la Maison is comprised primarily of material from Mon Paradis; indeed, ten of the 14 songs come from that album, including the hit singles "On S'Attache," "Parce Qu'on Sait Jamais," and "Belle Demoiselle." Not until the eighth song on Comme à la Maison does Maé turn toward non-Mon Paradis material, performing the three-song cycle "Mon P'tit Gars," "Moi J'ai Pas le Sou" (a duet with William Baldé), and "Sa Danse Donne" (an old song from his more or less impossible to find debut album of the same name). Then before closing the performance with the Mon Paradis highlights "Parce Qu'on Sait Jamais" and "C'est Ma Terre," Maé and his choir perform "Tribute to Bob Marley," essentially a three-minute medley of the refrains from "No Woman, No Cry," "Redemption Song," and "Could You Be Loved" -- that is, nothing special. While it's disappointing that Comme à la Maison doesn't include more surprises than it does, whether in the form of new material or cover songs, the live performance is still impressive and casts the songs of Mon Paradis in a new light, one that highlights Maé's African influence in particular (the finale of "C'est Ma Terre" especially). Still, anyone looking for more than an "unplugged" version of Mon Paradis might be disappointed. In addition to the 14-song live performance, the DVD half of Comme à la Maison includes a making-of segment, plus the promotional videos for "On S'Attache," "Parce Qu'on Sait Jamais," "Ça Fait Mal," "Belle Demoiselle," and "C'est Ma Terre." The deluxe collector's edition of Comme à la Maison adds even more bonus material, including a seven-song "Live à Paris Bercy" performance. Those looking for simply music should opt for the cheaper CD-only version, which spreads the 14-song beach concert across two discs.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo

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This release by countertenor Randall Scotting has a strong program; perhaps no one else has offered a works-on-a-theme set of this kind, and the pieces gain from being grouped together with others of their ilk. The songs are not just of the Dowland melancholy type but include a variety of moods from perhaps misplaced optimism and even humor to the grimmest of the grim, Thomas Ravenscroft's version of the traditional ballad The Three Ravens. There are French and Italian pieces as well as English ones, and the American faux-Scots Black is the color of my true love's hair seems to fit right in. In fact, the music emerges in Scotting's hands as a kind of subgenre, with the various types of piece in dialogue. Scotting has been better known for Baroque opera up to now, and he has a powerful voice that at times somewhat overpowers the material, but he has a feeling for these songs, and several other factors work in the album's favor, one being the presence of veteran lutenist Stephen Stubbs, who gets a few elegant solo turns. Another is the sheer beauty of Scotting's voice, which comes through no matter what the material. The graphics have a sense of fun (and one can say this regardless of the subject matter). Listeners are likely to enjoy this release, which is billed as an anti-Valentine's item. Gift it to someone you don't love!© James Manheim /TiVo