Suzanne Danco Sings Fauré & Debussy

COMPOSERS: Debussy,Faure
LABELS: Testament
PERFORMER: Suzanne Danco (soprano), Guido Agosti (piano)
CATALOGUE NO: SBT 1289 ADD mono

Decca was on the ball in the Fifties – the same virtues adorn the Belgian soprano SUZANNE DANCO’s records. A fine Mélisande, she is completely at home with Debussy’s Villon and Bilitis; miraculously, she finds nine different shades of rapture for Fauré’s La bonne chanson.

I wish she’d been able to display the same delicacy in Bach cantatas, but she’s hampered by Münchinger’s heavy orchestra; free of it, in three pseudo-Bach songs, she loses any stridency. Her arie antiche would rival Souzay’s, if Guido Agosti was as tactful a partner as Jacqueline Bonneau.