Category: Music

Review: Rosemary Standley’s “Schubert in Love”

Schubert songs are considered the culmination of lieder. Now a new recording by folk singer Rosemary Standley has been released, which sounds very different from the many recordings before.

It’s the voice that first strikes you. Clear and warm, but somehow also silvery, rough and idiosyncratic. Classic song singing doesn’t sound like that, but Rosemary Standley isn’t a classic singer either. She has been the front singer in the French folk band Moriarty for many years and is part of the chamber pop duo Birds on a Wire. She also works regularly in classic crossover projects.

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW at: ALBUM DER WOCHE | 02.11. – 08.11.2020 – Rosemary Standley: “Schubert in Love” | rbbKultur

Favorite songs

On her new CD “Schubert in Love” she recorded a number of songs by Franz Schubert together with the Contraste ensemble. All personal favorite pieces, ranging from the “serenade” to the “winter trip” to Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. A popular selection that sounds completely new in the arrangements of Johan Farjot, the musical director of Ensemble Contraste.

Schubert as a pop composer

Johan Farjot has rearranged the piano parts of Schubert’s songs for viola, double bass, guitar, drums and piano. Schubert on guitar, bass and drums: this transforms his songs into songs, turns softly throbbing rhythms into swinging ones. Farjot jumps very skillfully between classical, jazz and world music in his arrangements. In some places he even flashes Kurt Weill. He wanted to show Schubert “as a pop composer,” said Farjot. Because the intimacy that defines his music is basically exactly the same intimacy that singer-songwriters work with.

Bonus: an opera singer in a duet

There are also two duets on the album that Rosemary Standley sang together with the French baroque soprano Sandrine Piau. The only moment on the album when Rosemary Standley briefly doubted her project:

” Sandrine is a real opera singer, I’m not. But Johan calmed me down and said: Don´t worry, don´t worry! Don’t worry! It will be good! And yes, I think it actually sounds good, really nice.”

Singer-songwriter Schubert

“Schubert in Love” is a charming, playful and idiosyncratic interpretation that shows that you can approach Schubert’s songs in a completely different way. This is not about highly developed artistic singing, but about playing with different sounds and moods.

In addition, Rosemary Standley sings convincingly clear – and proves that as a folk singer you can get to the bottom of Schubert.

Beate Stender, rbbKultur

LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW at: ALBUM DER WOCHE | 02.11. – 08.11.2020 – Rosemary Standley: “Schubert in Love” | rbbKultur

Francis Cabrel: “It’s killing me!” 

Installed in Astaffort, in Lot-et-Garonne, far from the grayness and the rumors of the capital, Francis Cabrel doubtless thought he could escape mirages. It is also his friend Jacques Dutronc who had advised him to stay on the sidelines of the system, as the singer has just confided to our colleagues from the Parisian. “I learned the lesson: it’s a dangerous job if you get too close to it. So, I am a bit of a lonely bear, reclusive far from Paris. And happy to be. “

But even keeping an eye on the grain, being careful not to be devoured by the demons of notoriety, Francis Cabrel could not totally escape his fate… Today, in fact, there is something in his existence which destroys him a little more each year, to the point that the singer declared that this activity was killing him! What is it about ? Well the harvest, in which he regularly participates, especially since his brother, Philippe, is a winegrower on the family estate! “We harvested a fortnight ago,” he explained. I had my kidneys broken for three days! It kills me every year! “

However, this participation in the work of the vine is not the only thing to undermine the artist. Indeed, when we listen to his last album, the fourteenth, we say to ourselves that Cabrel has perhaps never been so far in privacy. Never before, for example, had he spoken so clearly about his father and the ties between them. Nor the great guilt that inhabits him at the idea that the latter has toiled all his existence to support his family. “I feel guilty every day for having a life that is too simple and too easy, with a guitar, a notebook, a pencil, compared to my father’s. The money earned, it has always been cumbersome … I do not talk about it easily elsewhere … “he confessed to Laurent Delahousse, on October 11, at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, on France 2.

But if he finds it difficult to “talk about it”, Francis Cabrel has managed to write a magnificent song in memory of his father, Te resembling: “I would have liked to resemble you, I swear. But now, it is not enough to want, it was not in my nature. You must have really questioned yourself, I’m sure. And one day, I crossed a guitar, I lived as we have fun. You had your feet on the ground. And I was just the opposite… ”

A sublime declaration of love and admiration, which should free the son and touch the father, if he can hear him, from “up there”.

Source: Francis Cabrel: “It’s killing me!” – France Sunday

Chanson du Jour “Tchi Tchi”

“Tino” Rossi (29 April 1907 – 26 September 1983) was a French singer and film actor. Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Rossi was gifted with a voice well suited for opera. He became a tenor in the French cabaret style. Later, he appeared in various movies. During his career it is reported he recorded over 2000 songs, including “Tchi – Tchi”