‘REFLEXIONS DE FRANCE”: SONGS BY POULENC, RAVEL,...

‘REFLEXIONS DE FRANCE”: SONGS BY POULENC, RAVEL, KOECHLIN, FAURE, SATIE, HAHN, TRENET AND COQUATRIX. Claudine Carlson, mezzo-soprano, Robert Hunter, piano. Town Hall S-38. In this astutely planned survey of the French art song, Carlson proves her mastery in all and sundry corners of the repertoire. Time and again, she finds the correct accent, the proper resonance, the apt mood, the wonted coloration for this widely contrasted program. The French-born artist may no longer summon a pristine sound, yet she turns her amber mezzo to admirable interpretive ends, whether in the stylized whimsy of Ravel’s “Histoire naturelles,” the salon sentiments of Reynaldo Hahn or the raffish wit of Erik Satie. Hunter is an unfailingly elegant accompanist.