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Debussy’s Fetes galantes poses quite a challenge: the singer has to switch from the flirtatious mood of ‘Les ingénues’, to the lascivious ‘Le faune’ and then the ghostly ‘Colloque sentimentale’. More familiar in performances by baritones, it’s a surprise at first to hear a tenor; but in the third song, the dialogue of two ghosts, Ian Bostridge employs his Peter Quint voice to eerie effect.

The first Faure song, Fleur jetee, sounds a trifle forced; at the climax of Prison one is aware of the limits imposed by a comparatively light voice. The charming Nell brings the group to a sunny end.

Poulenc seems to suit Bostridge well, and the Apollinaire songs receive sensitive performances, especially Montparnasse with its lyrical evocation of the small hotels and the poet distributing leaflets. The recording places Bostridge’s voice a little too close for my liking but Julius Drake does play Poulenc’s quicksilver changes and fleeting, half-realised melodies with humour.

Bostridge and Drake have often performed Poulenc’s Tel jour, telle nuit cycle in recital. These wonderful Eluard poems are open to many interpretations, and Bostridge makes an eloquent lover in ‘Je n’ai envie que t’aimer’ as well as a passionate, jealous one in ‘Figure de force brulante et farouche’.

Ian Bostridge: ‘youthful, touching ardour’

The high point is Faure’s La bonne chanson with the Belcea Quartet. In the third song, ‘La lune blanche’, Bostridge sails up to a beautiful head-tone at the words ‘C’est l’heure exquise’ — marked dolcissimo by Faure. Throughout, the support of the quartet seems to bring an almost ecstatic response; unlike so many song-cycles, La bonne chanson celebrates a happy, optimistic love. In this respect, Bostridge’s youthful ardour is both touching and well-judged.

John W. Freeman, Operanews.com, March 2005

Ian Bostridge’s voice defies characterization as simply a tenor, having the flexible range and tonal ambivalence of a baryton martin, the traditional Pelléas voice. Any early received impression of Bostridge as having a rather neutered timbre and impersonal style leaves the listener unprepared for this new recital disc. While it’s true that the singer doesn’t stamp the music with personal idiosyncrasies, what he does do is far more challenging: he climbs inside the songs on this all-French program and becomes whatever they require. This protean gift is apparent as early as track 4, Fauré’s “Fleur Jetée,” a reading urgent to the point of recklessness, yet never blurring the clarity of either text or music.

There are fine details, such as making the word “lointain” (faraway) sound distant in “Les Berceaux,” or matching tone to the kindly smile described at the end of the seventh song in LaBonneChanson. In Fauré’s “Prison” there’s a note of forthright accusation, soon followed by an exemplary “Nell” – excited, expressive yet limpid. The Poulenc set, with its more mannered style and arch, oblique attitudes, brings out all the skill and control in Bostridge’s work, ranging from the flat, even delivery of “Montparnasse” to the thrusting accents, picked out in staccato or sforzando, in “Dans le Jardin d’Anna.” The singer then treads cautiously through Poulenc’s “C” in a quasi-parlando, reminiscent of the historic recording artist Vanni-Marcoux, touching on falsetto at the word “délaissée” (forsaken), while for “Fêtes Galantes” there’s an abrupt switch to the boulevard insouciance of a French patter song.

From the quiet, weird ostinato of the pianist’s left hand in Debussy’s “Le Faune” and the sensitive articulation of the closing chords in “Colloque Sentimental,” it’s clear that Julius Drake is a partner equal in interpretive imagination and technical resource to the tenor himself.

After the Poulenc series, which takes one through extreme contrasts, the radiant optimism of Fauré’s La Bonne Chanson in its seldom heard chamber-music form, with string quintet and piano, clears the aural palate. Bostridge seems to take heart from the cushion of warm instrumental support. Throughout his recital, there are many, varied examples of a virtuosity that draws no attention to itself but focuses on every facet of the music. At last, here is a chance to relax, but it’s a joyful, exultant relaxation.