Anna Stéphany / Labyrinth Ensemble BLACK IS THE COLOUR

When we met for the first time in order to organise a concert based around Berio’s Folk Songs , little did we know how the project would develop over the next five years, culminating in the recording of this cd. 

Berio’s reworking of traditional material and also his inventing of new folk songs inspired us to seek out a similar work which we could rearrange to meet the ensemble’s specific needs. We quickly fell in love with Maurice Ravel’s magnificent Histoires Naturelles and its poetry by Jules Renard, which still enchants us today. 

Just as Ravel authorised Manuel Rosenthal to arrange the songs for large orchestra, a version we found a little grandiose, we too went in search of our own ‘Hunter of Images’ (to quote a title from one of Renard’s Histoires Naturelles), to transcribe the piece for us, without losing any of its intimacy or delicacy. 

All rearranging carries a risk and indeed Jules Renard himself chose not to be at the premier of Ravel’s songs in 1907, but we hope you will be as charmed as we are by Arthur Lavandier’s ability to recreate Ravel’s immensely nuanced soundworld in his magical transcription. (Anna Stéphany and Clément Noël)