CATHERINE ROBBIN, mezzo soprano
From her home in rural Ontario, Canadian mezzo-soprano Catherine Robbin has staked her claim to a career of major international proportions. Welcomed on the great concert and recital stages of the world, Ms. Robbin is in demand for her extensive repertoire, ranging from Bach and Handel to the works of Schubert, Mahler, Britten, Elgar, Berlioz and Ravel. Conductors including Mario Bernardi, Sergiu Comissiona, Christopher Hogwood, John Eliot Gardiner, Hans Graf, Nicholas McGegan, John Nelson, Trevor Pinnock and Simon Rattle vie for her services both on stage and in the recording studio. Catherine Robbin’s extensive discography includes recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon, Dorian, EMI, Erato, Marquis, Philips and Telarc labels. On CBC RECORDS, she can be heard in the Juno-Award-winning recording of highlights from Handel’s opera Floridante (SMCD 5110). CBC RECORDS has also released her recordings of Gustav Mahler orchestral songs (SMCD 5098) Lieder of Robert Schumann (MVCD 1050) and part-songs by Brahms, Schumann and Greer with the Aldeburgh Connection (MVCD 1077). In addition, she can be heard on the historic Millennium Opera Gala, which was recorded ‘live’ on December 31, 1999 at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto (SMCD 5198). A recording devoted to the complete songs of Henri Duparc is also forthcoming. Ms. Robbin first collaborated with the distinguished Canadian pianist and Ravel specialist André Laplante in 1983, at the Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, Ontario.

ANDRÉ LAPLANTE, piano
Canadian pianist André Laplante has firmly established himself as one of the great romantic virtuosos of his generation. He first garnered international attention after winning prizes at the Geneva and Sydney International Piano Competitions, and the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (where he won the silver medal). Since then, Mr. Laplante has performed in most of the major musical centres in Europe, North America and the Far East, to the highest critical acclaim. André Laplante has appeared as a soloist with all the major orchestras of Canada as well as with the Buffalo Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic – to name only a few. A renowned recitalist, Mr. Laplante also appears in chamber music (with such groups as the Alcan and Vermeer String Quartets) and has collaborated with a select group of singers, including Catherine Robbin. An active recording artist, André Laplante’s releases on the Analekta label include critically-acclaimed performances of works by Brahms, Liszt and Rachmaninoff. It is his recordings of the solo piano music of Ravel, however, which have garnered particular critical praise. For CBC RECORDS, Mr. Laplante has also recorded contemporary piano concerti of Glenn Buhr, Raymond Luedeke and Akiro Nishimura with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey (SMCD 5141).

Five Greek Folksongs
Although published in 1906, the first of Ravel’s Greek folksong settings dates from 1904. At that time, Ravel was approached by the critic and translator, Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi, who urgently required five song settings for a lecture-recital which he was giving on Greek music. Ravel reportedly obliged by tossing off five arrangements within a thirty-six hour period and Calvocoressi, delighted with the results, subsequently commissioned three more. It is from this collection of eight songs that Ravel published five under the title, “Cinq mélodies populaires grecques”. These five songs - with French translations by Calvocoressi – were premiered by soprano Marguerite Barbaïan. Although Ravel immediately set about orchestrating the collection, it remained unfinished until one of his pupils - Manuel Rosenthal – completed the task in 1935.

[Five] Folksongs
In 1910, the Moscow Maison du Lied offered a number of prizes for settings of popular songs taken from the folklores of different countries. Among the seven winning entries in the competition, four were by Maurice Ravel. These settings – of Spanish, French, Italian and Hebrew folksongs - were premiered in Moscow and published later that same year by Jurgenson under the title Quatre chants populaires. In addition to these four songs, Ravel had also set three others. Of these, two folksongs – the Chanson flamande and the Chanson russe – have been lost, while the third – the Chanson écossaise – was not published until 1975 by Éditions Salabert. The Chanson écossaise, which is rarely performed or recorded today, is a setting of the popular “Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon” by the 18th-century Scottish poet and composer, Robert Burns.

Two Hebrew Songs
The two so-called Hebrew Songs were arranged by Ravel in 1913. As it turns out, however, neither song is actually in Hebrew. The first, Kaddisch (a traditional prayer for the dead), is in Aramaic; while the second, L’Énigme éternelle (a satiric, philosophical song), is in Yiddish. The songs were written for the soprano, Alvina Alvi, a star of the St. Petersburg Opera. It was she, who – along with Ravel at the piano - gave the premiere of the songs for the Société Musicale Indépendante in Paris on June 3, 1914. Five years later, in 1919, Ravel scored the two songs for voice and orchestra. This version was premiered in Paris, in 1920, by the great French soprano, Madeleine Grey. A recording of these two songs, as well as the Chanson hébraïque (Mejerke), with Madame Grey and the composer at the piano exists and has been re-released on the Pearl label.

Three poems of Stéphane Mallarmé
After encountering Igor Stravinksy’s Japanese Lyrics (for voice, two flutes, two clarinets, piano and string quartet), Ravel was inspired to write a work with a similar instrumentation. For this, he turned to the somewhat elusive poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé. “The poetry speaks to you or it does not,” Ravel once explained. “It is very obscure, and if once it seizes you – marvelous! I consider Mallarmé not merely the greatest French poet, but the only French poet, since he made the French language - not designed for poetry – poetical. … Mallarmé exorcised that language, magician that he was. He released winged thoughts, subconscious reveries, from their prisons.” Composed in 1913, the Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé were premiered on January 14, 1914, with mezzo-soprano Jane Bathori as soloist and with an ensemble conducted by Désiré-Emile Inghelbrecht.

Madagascan Songs
In the early 1920s, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (a wealthy American patron of the arts who sponsored the creation of a new chamber work from a major composer every year) commissioned Ravel to write a piece for voice, flute, cello and piano. In searching for a text, Ravel turned his attention to a collection by Evariste Parny (1753-1814) – a forgotten poet who claimed [falsely, as it turns out] to have collected and translated several native songs from the island of Madagascar. “The Chansons madécasses,” Ravel once wrote, “seem to me to bring a new element, dramatic – indeed erotic – resulting from the subject matter of Parny’s poems. The songs form a sort of quartet in which the voice plays the role of the principal instrument. Simplicity is all-important.” The set was premiered on May 8, 1926, at the American Academy in Rome, with Jane Bathori as soloist.

Sheherazade
Ravel once belonged to an artistic circle called “Apaches” founded in 1902. One member of that group was the poet, painter and musician, Léon Leclère - best-known by his intriguing Wagnerian nom-deplume, Tristan Klingsor. In 1903, Ravel turned to Leclère’s collection of exotic poems, Shéhérazade, for inspiration. The three resulting songs were premiered on May 17, 1904, in Paris by the French soprano Jane Hatto (Asie is dedicated to her) and the orchestra of the Société Nationale conducted by Alfred Cortot. Although the songs were conceived with orchestral accompaniment, Ravel – himself an accomplished pianist - made his own piano reduction, published by Astruc in 1904. Although this set is usually performed in the following order - Asie, La Flûte enchantée, L’Indifférent - Ravel reportedly preferred the order chosen for this disc.