Rembrandt Chamber Players performing Peter LaBella's new arrangement of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne (Songs of the Auvergne) for chamber ensemble. Recorded by Victor LeJeune at PianoForte Studios. Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano; Stephen Alltop, conductor/piano; Rose Armbrust-Griffin, viola; Sandra Morgan, flute; Robert Morgan, oboe; Renée-Paule Gauthier, violin; Barbara Haffner, cello; Collins Trier, bass. “Shepherd across the river, You’re not having a very good time over there Sing Baïlèro Lèrô!” “You are right And what about you? Sing Baïlèro Lèrô!” “Shepherd, the field is full of flowers Get your flock on this side! Baïlèro Lèrô!” “The grass is much greener On my side Sing Baïlèro Lèrô!” “Shepherd, the water separates us, And I cannot cross it Baïlèro Lèrô!” “Wait for me I’ll come find you Baïlèro Lèrô!” -Translation by: Josefien Stoppelenburg This work is a collection of folksongs from the Auvergne region of France, an area located south of Paris near the center of the country. These songs were originally arranged for soprano with orchestral accompaniment by Joseph Cantiloube between 1923 and 1930. The libretto is written in the local language of Occitan, and the songs are written in a lush, atmospheric, late-Impressionist style, though without the harmonic ingenuity of Debussy or Ravel. Indeed, such harmonic treatment of these simple melodies might have been gaudy and overdone. Cantiloube himself was also a musicologist and author who was born into a family with an ancestral history in the Auvergne region. In 1925, shortly after he began assembling and orchestrating these songs, he formed a group called “La Bourrée” with other musicians from his home region who shared his desire to preserve the beauty of the music of their birthplace. As Cantiloube himself put it, “Peasant songs often rise to the level of purest art in terms of feeling and expression, if not in form.” This collection demonstrates that conviction clearly in its most famous number, “Bailero” (“Song of the Famers of Upper Auvergne”), a brief but rapturous rhapsody that transports the listener to an Auvergne farmer’s tranquil realm. -Program notes by Tim Sawyier

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