Little can be as momentous for a work as its encounter with an extraordinary interpreter. Here, Fauré has found his voice in that of Cyrille Dubois.

A bright, clear timbre and impeccable diction undoubtedly contribute to the remarkable complicity that we witness, but its secret lies above all perhaps in the French tenor’s singular ability to convey an atmosphere, evoke an emotion, a feeling, a mood - in short, bring out all the poetic qualities of the music.

In this ambitious project, Cyrille Dubois and his long-standing recital partner, the pianist Tristan Raës, take on the complete art songs - mélodies - of Gabriel Fauré: over a hundred settings of texts by poets including Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire, but also Armand Silvestre, Charles Van Lerberghe, Jean de La Ville de Mirmont, and many others.

For the very first time, all of the composer’s songs are performed here by one singer. And never have Fauré’s vaporous, muted dreams been more transparent.

In the run-up to the centenary of his death, may this happy event further the composer’s fortunes, and contribute to a renewed awareness of his modernity.