Bernheim’s Debut Album of French Songs

Carrie-Ann Matheson and Benjamin Bernheim (courtesy of Crossover Media)

This Friday Deutsche Grammophon will release the first solo song album by tenor Benjamin Bernheim. He will be accompanied at the piano by his regular recital partner, Carrie-Ann Matheson. If you think that name is a familiar one, you probably followed the Merola Opera Program performances this past summer. Matheson teamed up with tenor Nicholas Phan to curate the program The Song as Drama, which was presented at the end of this past June.

The title of Bernheim’s album is Mélodies & Chansons. “Mélodie” is basically the French term for “art song.” On this album it is represented three familiar French composers: Hector Berlioz, Ernest Chausson, and Henri Duparc. The “chanson,” on the other hand, is more in the popular vein. I first encountered it as a student when the United States first “discovered” Jacques Brel. The other two chanson composers are Charles Trenet and Joseph Kosma, whose name may not be familiar but whose contribution on this album definitely is!

The Berlioz selection is Les nuits d’été (summer nights). I am almost certain that this was my first contact with a French song cycle. Prior to that encounter, my knowledge of Berlioz was limited to “Symphonie fantastique” and “Harold en Italie.” In other words I associated Berlioz with massive instrumentation out of reflex. As a result, my first encounter with Les nuits d’été was like a bolt from the blue; and I have been hooked on its intimacy ever since then. Nevertheless, in the context of all that experience, I found myself drawn to Bernheim’s rhetorical delivery. Similarly, I have had past encounters with both Chausson’s “Poème de l’amour et de la mer” and Duparc’s art songs, four of which are performed on Bernheim’s album. His delivery convinces me that this is music that deserves more attention than I have previously given it.

Where the chansons are concerned, my past experiences are few and distant. To the extent that I remember Brel at all, I tended to associate sharper edges with him than with Bernheim’s delivery. On the other hand, his account of Kosma’s “Les Feuilles mortes” (the dead leaves) acknowledges that this “original version” delivers far more impact than any account of “Autumn Leaves” I have heard. Mind you, this has as much to do with the music as it does with the depth of the lyrics by Jacque Prévert, which are entirely out of Johnny Mercer’s league!