A French Song Companion
Now available in paperbackAn indispensable guide to French songContains commentary by internationally famous accompanist, Graham JohnsonInvaluable reference tool with line-by-line translations ofall songs includedHardback edition (which is still selling well) has sold 778 copies since publication date of June 2000 - 289 UK, 400 USA, and 89 ROW.Hardback edition has been widely reviewed in magazines suchas The Singer, Musical Times, Gramaphone, Literary Review (to name a few). More to follow since it's early days.The French Song Companion is the most comprehensive book of French mélodie in any language. Thegreataccompagnist Graham Johnson, a noted authority of song, provides repertoire guides to the work of some 150 composers - the majority of them from France, but including British, American, German, Spanish, and Italian musicianswho have written French vocal music. There are major articles on such figures as Fauré, Duparc, Debussy, Ravel, and Poulenc; substantial articles on Bizet, Chabrier, Gounod, Chausson, Hahn, and Satie; and reassessments of suchcomposers as Massenet, Koechlin, and Leguerney. A host of less celebrated figures who have contributed to the genre take their place in a book which is both informative and entertaining.The biographical articles aresupplemented by the song translations of Richard Stokes, some 700 in all, and a veritable treasury of great French poetry from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries. These stand in their own right as indispensable to musiclovers, concert-goers, and professional singers and their accompanists. This is a book which not only reflects the repertoire as found in today's concert halls, but also encourages performers and armchair enthusiasts to explorethe neglected highways and biways of an endlessly fascinating and highly civilised body of music.
