Les Délices explores the dramatic potential and emotional resonance of long-forgotten music. Songs Without Words is their second release on Navona Records and was initially inspired by the artists’s desire to recover a lost repertory...

Les Délices has done it again. Like their previous album, Age of Indulgence [2017], Songs Without Words shines the spotlight on lesser known works of a bygone era... and then throws a curve ball by also incorporating familiar jazz and pop tracks.

Whether you're a serious classical music fan, or one who only really listens to the occasional "popular" famous works by well known composers, Songs Without Words will delight you. I'd even go as far as to say it may even convert those that are usually turned off classical music.

Over the course of these 19 tracks (58 min, 04 sec) Les Délices turn their hand to just about everything. You'd think that only a mad person would rework Patsy Cline / Willie Nelson's classic 'Crazy' for Baroque woodwinds and harpsichord and then follow this with 'd'Un feu secret' by Michel Lambert. On paper that just should not work. But it does... and just shows how music is not just a universal media, but also a timeless one too.

The album was originally intended to explore and recover a lost repertory. While Baroque woodwinds were invented in the 1660s and 70s, no published solo music exists for them prior to 1700. The initial question that Songs Without Words sought to answer was, “What do you suppose oboists and flutists had been playing during those 30-plus years?”

In the end it was decided to expand the collective's repertoire with 20th Century jazz standards and pop tunes – from artists as diverse as Lennon and McCartney, Patsy Cline and Willie Nelson, Edith Piaf and Erroll Garner – arranged for and improvised by the ensemble. The French airs on the album are by some of the greatest writers of the 17th century: Michel Lambert, Jean-Baptiste de Bousset, and Jean-Philippe Rameau.

The end result is a fun, engaging and incredibly well realised album that will give you years of listening pleasure. Lennon and McCartney's 'Michelle' and Erroll Garner's 'Misty' have never sounded so classy.

Track listing:

01 - A FLOWER IS A LOVESOME THING - BILLY STRAYHORN, ARR. AIDAN PLANK (3:16)
02 - POURQUOI, DOUX ROSSIGNOL - JEAN-BAPTISTE DE BOUSSET (1:44)
03 - EMILY - JOHNNY MANDEL (2:48)
04 - PRELUDE IN A MINOR - MARIN MARAIS (2:43)
05 - TOMORROW IS MY TURN - CHARLES AZNAVOUR (4:39)
06 - CRAZY - PATSY CLINE/WILLIE NELSON (1:42)
07 - D’UN FEU SECRET - MICHEL LAMBERT (3:06)
08 - FOLIES D’ESPAGNE - MARIN MARAIS (6:26)
09 - LA FOULE - EDITH PIAF (3:00)
10 - J’AVOIS JURÉ - JOSEPH CHABANCEAU DE LA BARRE (3:04)
11 - ALLEZ BERGERS - JOSEPH CHABANCEAU DE LA BARRE (2:05)
12 - LES VOIX HUMAINES - MARIN MARAIS (3:40)
13 - TRISTES APPRÊTS - JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (5:03)
14 - MICHELLE - MCCARTNEY & LENNON (2:49)
15 - RÉCIT DE LA BEAUTÉ - JEAN-BAPTISTE LULLY (3:02)
16 - MISTY - ERROLL GARNER (2:20)
17 - DE MES SOUPIRS - JEAN-BAPTISTE DE BOUSSET AFTER JACQUES-MARTIN HOTTETERRE (2:01)
18 - VOS MESPRIS CHAQUES JOUR - MICHEL LAMBERT (2:55)
19 - AUTUMN LEAVES - JOSEPH KOSMA & JOHNNY MERCER (1:52)

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Darren Rea