Lili Boulanger:
Reflets
Attente

Marguerite Canal:
La Flute de jade, Mélodies chinoises (Chinese Songs), Extraites des Cent Mélodies (From One Hundred Songs) A Ninon Vallin

Achille-Claude Debussy:
Trois Chansons de Bilitis (Three Songs of Bilitis)

Armande de Polignac:
Songs from ‘La Flute de jade’

Henri Duparc:
Au pays ou se fait la guerre in F minor
La Vie antérieure in E flat major for High Voice

Rita Strohl:
Songs from ‘Bilitis’, Poeme en Douze Chants Extraits des ‘Chansons de Bilitis’ de Pierre Louys (Poem in Twelve Songs from the ‘Songs of Bilitis’ by Pierre Louys)

Hedwige Chrétien:
24 L’Amoureuse des vagues, A Mademoiselle Marguerite Bracks
Les Matelots, A Madame Rosine Laborde
Dernier reve!

Rita Strohl:
La Momie, No. 7 from Dix Poésies mises en musique (Ten Pieces of Poetry Set to Music) A Mademoiselle Henriette Menjaud

The mezzo-soprano Kitty Whately and pianist Edwige Herchenroder present a programme of French mélodies from a range of composers, all based in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. This was an exciting and stimulating time in the city, when the country was experiencing a surge of national confidence and creativity, and events such as the 1889 Exposition Universelle, broadened both geographical and cultural horizons. The women’s movement flourished concurrently, ushering in new – if still unequal – educational and professional opportunities. The songs included on the album reflect these new horizons in a number of ways. The majority were composed by female composers and share popular contemporary sources such as Songs of Bilitis (a collection of erotic, essentially lesbian poetry by Pierre Louys, published in Paris in 1894) and Franz Toussaint's La Flute de jade (The Jade Flute), a French translation of an anthology of Chinese poems. The album contains four premiere recordings – three songs by Hedwige Chrétien, and Marguerite Canal’s settings of seven songs from La Flute de jade.