Isabel Bayrakdarian ~ Pauline Viardot-Garcia Lieder, Chancon, Canzoni, Mazurkas

Pauline Viardot had such charm and talent most of her contemporary male French composers fell in love with her, even though she was not a classic beauty. Clara Schumann wrote that she was the most talented woman she'd ever met. This intelligent charm comes through in her many well-crafted songs and this recording is by far the most outstanding Viardot song collection available that I've heard. The subtleties and varieties of expression are here like no other. This esquisite recording is to be enjoyed like fine wine with a fine meal.

own several CD's ...... beautifully collected pieces ...... masterfully sung ......... great background supporting music for any activity.

I've been a fan of the Armenian-Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian from the first moment I heard her voice. Just now thirty, she has exploded onto the operatic and recital stage in the last two or three years, singing at many of the world's opera houses (e.g., two roles thus far at the Metropolitan) and foremost recital halls. And she has recorded for just as long. Her story is all the more amazing in that she didn't study singing until she had just about finished her degree with honors in Biomedical Engineering at a Canadian university. I have reviewed two earlier CDs ('Azulão' and 'Cleopatra,' both available here at Amazon) and not surprisingly gave them both raves.Here we have a collection of songs by another remarkable woman, Pauline Viardot-Garcia (1821-1910) who was a world-famous singer whose voice comprised the range from contralto to high coloratura soprano. She was from what has been called the Royal Family of Singing of the 19th century. Her father was singer and singing teacher (and the first-ever Figaro in Rossini's 'Barber of Seville') Manuel Garcia Sr, her sister the legendary Maria Malibran, her brother Manuel Garcia Jr. As a physician I am always pleased to note that Manuel Jr, aside from being a singer and then a teacher of such singing stars as Jenny Lind and Mathilde Marchesi, was also the inventor of the laryngoscope, that medical instrument that allows one to see the vocal cords. Wouldn't you know it was a singing teacher who came up with that idea!As a composer, Viardot wrote well over 100 songs in at least five languages to texts by such writers as Turgenev, Musset, Pushkin, Gautier, Goethe and Mörike. She set twelve of Chopin's mazurkas to texts by Louis Pomey, and Chopin is reported to have been delighted with them. Four of those are included on this disc. Her music is expertly crafted but makes no pretensions of being much more than exceedingly charming salon music. I will admit that I had not known more than a few of them, but I've been listening to this disc repeatedly over the last few days and keep finding delightful things in them. The songs are helped by the simply lovely singing of Miss Bayrakdarian. She has a silvery, flexible, lyric soprano that is even from top to bottom. The quality of her voice reminds me, if I had to compare her with anyone, of Elly Ameling, a long-time favorite of mine (and the world's). She has something else that Ameling had--a smile in the voice. I cannot explain what that means technically but I know it when I hear it. One has the sense that Bayrakdarian has enormous pleasure from singing and that comes across.Some highlights on this disc: 'Havanaise' with its feathery coloratura (how does any singer manage to sing florid triplets at such a speed?), the four Chopin mazurkas included here, the utterly sweet lullaby 'L'Enfant et la Mère,' the lover's plaint 'Haï Luli,' the pastorale 'Chanson de la Pluie,' the nocturnes 'Des Nachts' and 'Die Sterne,' the desperate cry of the jilted lover, 'Morirò' ('I shall die'). If I had to place the musical style of Viardot-Garcia, I'd put it in the general ambit of Gounod and Bizet, with a bow to Mendelssohn.Bayrakdarian's performances are nuanced but not overly so. These are not deathless poems and they don't require that sort of emphasis. As far as I can tell the only defect, if you call it that, in her voice is that her trill is just a bit rudimentary. But this is definitely a voice to treasure. Not having heard her live, I don't really know how big the voice is, but its purity and sheen almost certainly would help make it heard in a larger house. Her pianist is a fellow Armenian-Canadian, Serouj Kradjian. He is a sensitive accompanist and his piano is recorded very well. [Bayrakdarian and Kradjian, I've just learned, were married in the summer of 2004.]I can't wait for Bayrakdarian's next recording.TT=69:06Scott Morrison

Isabel Bayrakdarian is a rising star in the field of opera and recital and this most interesting recording of the songs written by the legendary Pauline Viardot-Garcia, a singer whose wide vocal range is a bit of operatic legend, gratefully reinforces the early suggestion that this is an artist who thinks beyond the stage lights and curtain calls.Beautiful of presence as well as of voice, Bayrakdarian illuminates the stage as well as the intimate concert recital hall. As in her thoughtful and successful recording of songs focused on the character Cleopatra, here she turns to the rarely heard (and to many unknown) songs written by the singer who had it all in her day of bel canto. In keeping with the tradition of her time Pauline Viardot-Garcia's songs were composed primarily as salon music and she admittedly usurped the style of her favorite composers in creating these lovely songs to an audience that always included luminaries in the arts of her time.Bayrakdarian, with the sensitive collaboration of her husband Serouj Kradjian at the piano, tosses off these songs in many languages and many moods written to the poetry of such divers writers as Gauthier, Pushkin, Goethe, Turgenev, etc with ease of technical finesse and sensitive interpretation. Hers is a voice while not large has the quality that commands the listener's ear and attention. And surprisingly for the rather extreme range of these works she is comfortable in every portion of the vocal palette. These are refreshing, lovely, if not always great, songs and Bayrakdarian sings them with aplomb and respect.One wonders what her next venture into the recorded field will be. She is an amazingly gifted artist who seems to be pacing an important career with much intelligence. Grady Harp, May 05

Pauline Viardot-Garcia est une compositrice de grand talent et de grande délicatesse à découvrir. L'interprétation est superbe. Un album excellent.