2004 Les Fables de La Fontaine, Vol. 2. Racontées par Michel Galabru et Jean Topart. CD. Frémeaux & Associés. Unknown source..
This is the latter of two CD's that are apparently identical in content with the two-CD set from the same firm in 2012, which one can find elsewhere on this page. This second disc has 17 fables, listed on the back of the packaging. As I mention there, these CD's may be the best representation of a great reading of these, some of the best known fables of La Fontaine. The outer cellophane packaging here displayed many of the same notices of prizes these recordings have won! The booklet offers the very same critique texts by Jean-Pierre Collinet as the booklet nine years later, now newly formatted, as is the packaging of the discs. As there, one finds in the booklet plentiful Doré illustrations. Did the first disc do so well that they made a second disc a year later? The first disc curiously shows no "Volume 1" to correspond to the "Volume 2" here.
2015 Les Fables de la Fontaine transcribed in music by Nicolas Clérambault. CD. Performed by Ensemble Almazis with harpsichordist Iakovos Pappas. Magnetone. Duplitechnologies.
Here is something new. Clérambault in the eighteenth century created children's music out of fables, set to vaudeville tunes and simple arias. The texts by an unknown author are simpler than La Fontaine's. They match well the catchy tunes to which they are put. The result is delightful, not least when OF ends with a vocal sound like a balloon bursting. The disc has twenty such fables and then six instrumental-only tracks for family karaoke. With the disc is a 20-page leaflet including English translations of the prose descriptions and eight strong illustrations of fables by Thomas Carrere.
2005 Les Fables de La Fontaine pour les petits, Volume 1. CD. Avec la partcipation [sic] de Jean-Pierre Darras. MCSA Entertainment. Vente exclusivement réservé à la Belgique.
Several things are remarkable about this disc. First is the price for which I was able to obtain it. It could not be lower! Next is that a goodly portion of the disc seems to repeat, from Puzzle Productions, readings of four fables by Jean-Pierre Darras from a disc we have, produced in 1999. The third remarkable thing is that the other five presentations are as different as could be from Darras' readings. They are a kind of "children's radio theater" presentation of the fables, complete with giggles, sirens, the sound of pouring lemonade, and church bells. These are dramatizations of La Fontaine, sometimes – only sometimes, as far as I can perceive – using La Fontaine's words. I suspect the voices of, for example, the town and country mice are sped up human voices. TMCM seems to include several broken glasses or dishes and also a phone call to the town mouse. I find the grouping of these presentations with Darras' readings jarring. For the price, I guess I cannot complain. We do not have the second volume, and I will not be seeking it zealously.
