Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Chanson triste, Op.2 no.4

One of the Lammermuir Festival's miniature miracles: Véronique Gens and Joseph Middleton present an evening of French chansons in the East Lothian countryside. 

The performance of the young French mezzo-soprano was admired more for its correctness than for its seductiveness.

If Chest is not yet the finished article, he’s damned close.

Twentysomething Philippe Sly wields an impressive voice. Like the mythical John Henry’s hammer, it rings like silver in the upper register, the middle shines like gold, and his bass is firm as iron. From the second line of Henri Duparc’s “Chanson Triste” Sly interested with his way of rolling out phrases, englobing lines in cavernous spaces.