Bethany Beardslee/Robert Helps: Stories, Airs and Verse:
French Art Songs of Debussy and Ravel
Renowned as one of
the greatest lyric sopranos of the latter half of the
twentieth century, Bethany Beardslee and her longtime
collaborator, pianist Robert Helps, weave magical
musical tapestries from the texts of Maurice Ravel's Histoires
Naturelles and Claude Debussy's Ariettes
Oubliées and Proses Lyriques.
The profound maturity and expressive
purity of Beardslee's and Helps' performances here
ensure that this disc will be the standard against which
all future recordings of these works will be measured.
"The interpretations show a
marvellous awareness and intelligence." —Fanfare
"You and
Bethany Beardslee are unbelievably a pleasure both
separately and together. Once every 25 or 30 years
a team works like that.
Yours is the first I have encountered since
Pierre Bernac and Francis Poulenc used to work
together." —Virgil
Thomson (in a letter to Robert Helps)
Renowned as one of
the greatest lyric sopranos of the latter half of the
twentieth century, Bethany Beardslee and her longtime
collaborator, pianist Robert Helps, weave magical
musical tapestries from the texts of Maurice Ravel's Histoires
Naturelles and Claude Debussy's Ariettes
Oubliées and Proses Lyriques.