Fables of La Fontaine

2001 Anthologie des Fables de La Fontaine. Choisies et lues par Michel Leeb. Illustrées par Philippe de Kemmeter. Hardbound. Paris: Éditions du Layeur. €10 from an unknown source, August, '12. This is a curious book, with a fine CD. The unusualness starts with the book's thin, tall format: 5¾" x 9½". The unusualness continues with the twelve full-page colored illustrations. Their style is lively, primitive, spirited, creative. The French keep using their imaginations on La Fontaine, and the results are delightful for the rest of us! There is a strange thing here: many of the illustrations are separated from their texts. Since there is no table of the illustrations, I will list them here with their pages and, if they are separate, the pages of their texts. They are "The Weasel in the Granary" (17, 15); "The Stag Admiring Himself" (21, 18); UP (33, 35); "The Bulls and the Frogs" (41); TH (49, 51); "The Old Lion" (53); "The Lion and the Mosquito" (57); WC (69, 66); "The Wounded Eagle" (77); "The Angler and the Small Fish" (81, 78); and "The Fox and the Goat" (85). Let me suggest something engaging about each of three of the best among these. The weasel in the granary has eaten books, not grain! In the illustration for "The Bulls and the Frogs," one can see the frogs underwater as well as the bovine love triangle that caused their problems. In "The Wounded Eagle," colors help make clear that it is eagle feathers that have mortally wounded this eagle. FC shows up three times: on the cover, on the verso of the title-page, and on 37. The disc has little or no music but very good voices. I will keep the disc in its holder inside the end-paper at the back of the book.

1997 Chansons de la Fontaine. Monomotapa. CD. Nineteen fables rendered as songs. Composition and arrangements of almost all: Jean Chavot. Auvidis Jeunesse. Studio du Palais. Liège, Belgium: Studio S.O.S. €3.49 from Ansali Multimedia Vertriebs GmbH through Ebay, Dec., '05. This disc is a very pleasant surprise. The texts of La Fontaine are presented verbatim, if not always at the same level of intensity or audibility. But each text is encased in a true chanson, with its own rhythm and persuasion. These chansons move! I enjoyed the first four immensely, not least the conjunction of the third and fourth: "The Rat and the Elephant" and "The Frog Who Wanted to Be as Big as An Ox." They are very much about the same pretentiousness. The voices here work together wonderfully! An accompanying little booklet with clever illustrations offers a key refrain from each song.

2010 Fables de Jean de La Fontaine Lues par Gérard Philipe et ses Compères. Illustrations by Bruno Vacaro. Hardbound. Vandrezanne: Le Chant du Monde. €19.90 from L'Écume des Pages, Paris, July, '12. This is a fine book with an excellent compact disc. Twenty fables appear, with at least one fine, detailed, full-page colored illustration per fable. The best among these illustrations may be for "The Coach and the Fly" (5), as the mosquito stands sweating after the coach can start downhill; for "The Small Fish and the Angler" (11); for GA (21); for "The Wolves and the Sheep" (32), where wolf and sheep bump fists to clinch their deal; and for OF (34). The illustrations are lively. There is a T of C on the back cover. The actors on the disc come from Le Théâtre Français. The tracks feature only voices, but they are excellent and nicely varied voices. The French keep on presenting their La Fontaine with distinction!

1991 Fables de La Fontaine. CD. Fables as songs by Lecocq, Offenbach, Gounod, Caplet, de Manziarly, Van Parys, and Trenet. EMI Classics. $17.95 from Gennady Smolyakov, Albuquerque, NM, through Amazon Marketplace, August, '15. This CD was a revelation to me, through its 22 tracks, of the rich heritage of presentation of La Fontaine's fables as songs. I enjoyed them! Collaborators here are piano and four voices. Lecocq's WL is an excellent example of contrasting wolf and lamb voices. He also has a wonderfully dramatic finish to FC. I found Offenbach's "Shepherd and Sea" eminently understandable. The same goes for his GA. Gounod has several voices, not necessarily in unison, working at once. Caplet and de Manziarly are more "modern," that is, less predictable and "pretty." I enjoyed particularly Caplet's WL with its great closing line and de Manziarly's OF. I found Van Parys more easily comprehensible in his FC, including the inserted "coi, coi, coi." Trenet's GA, among the shortest offerings, seemed to me more playful than others. An auditory treat!

2009 Fables de La Fontaine. Composition, direction musicale et réalization: Pierre-Gérard Verny. For use with the book Fables de La Fontaine sur des airs de jazz. Paris: Flammarion: Père Castor. €19.81 for the book, including the CD, from Amazon.fr, Oct., '11. Of the twenty-eight fables in the book, twelve are selected for presentation in a jazz mode here. The titles for the music are clever, e.g., "Le blues de la Cigale," "La fugue du Renard," and "La marche de la Tortue." The disc runs some 79 minutes. The final piece puts together two stories of the "smaller," LM and AD, in "Le medley des plus petits." The musical score for "La marche de la Tortue" is at the end of the book.

2000 Fables Jazz: Jean de la Fontaine. CD. 15 fables embedded in jazz arrangements. Chemin Faisant. Sergent Major Company. Unknown source. Here is another highly creative development of La Fontaine's fables. I listened to and enjoyed the first three: "La Montagne Qui Accouche"; OR; and "The Coach and the Fly." The last of these was, for me, the most clearly articulated. Because the marriage of jazz and fable is somewhat breathtaking as an endeavor, I think the producer had to make some choices. In that third fable, "The Coach and the Fly," I believe the choice was for articulate rendering of the words of the fable. I believe that that effort succeeded. In a fable like "La Montagne Qui Accouche," I believe his choice was more for the mood set by the jazz. I believe that that effort also succeeded. At the end of OR, there is a clever repetition of "Morts." That word sums up wonderfully the end of the arrogant oak.

2004 Jacques Offenbach: 6 Fables de La Fontaine; Chanson de Fortunio. Musical CD. Bruno Laplante, baritone. Marc Durand, pianist. Made in France. Calliope 4881. First recorded by Arpège in 1979. $10 from FOT Records, Van Nuys, CA, through Ebay, Jan., '10. This is the first time, I believe, that I have sat and listened to these renderings. They are delightful. The music moves wonderfully in coordination with the text of La Fontaine. The silent moment, for example, in "Shepherd and Sea" comes at the time when the former flock owner has lost everything at sea and must return now to be a hired shepherd. The contrast in voices in "Cobbler and Financier" is also engaging. Likewise, the choice of phrases to be repeated supports well what is going on in the text. Besides the title pieces, there are five other offerings on this 50-minute disc. Winner of the award "Grand Prix du Disque."

2000 Jean de La Fontaine: Fables. Tome 2. CD. Narrator: Albert Millaire. Illustrations: Anne Coté. Musique: Alexandre Stanké. Collection Coffragants: Alexandre Stanké. From Patrice Julien, Quebec. Lively and articulate narrations of seventeen fables, separated by brief musical interludes. This and a 1993 CD, also from Millaire and Stanké, may be the only CDs in our collection narrated by a Canadian, though I am sure I cannot tell the different in accent. The disc is accompanied by a 48-page booklet offering the French texts of the fables with one colored and several black-and-white drawings of Anne Coté. Our collection also includes a 1993 audio cassette of Albert Millaire reading, again for Alexandre Alexandre Stanké. I could not establish any clear relationship between this CD and that cassette and could also not compare this CD and booklet with the CD and publication from 1993.

1993 Jean de La Fontaine: Oh! les belles fables! Albert Millaire. Musique de Alexandre Stanké. Illustrations et conception visuelle: Anne Côte. Productions: Les Éditions Stanké. Fabriqué au Québec. Participation Sodec. COF-12-CD. Coffragants. $5 from Ross Coleman, Days Creek, OR, through Ebay, August, '00. A very nice rendition of sixteen La Fontaine fables, complete with well integrated orchestral support. Millaire has a lovely voice. See the book and cassette that were all apparently done together.

2005 La Fontaine and Le Gaucher. La Fontaine and Le Gaucher. Pierrejean Gaucher. Paris: Nocturne. £2.45 from ianscdstore, Liverpool, through eBay, August, '11. Here is a 50-minute compact disc featuring sixteen fables musically rendered. Fourteen are in French, with one Italian version of OF and one English version of GA. Guitars, pianos, accordion, trombone, saxophone, flute, counterbass, and percussion all contribute. Pierrejean Gaucher did the composition and arrangements of the music. A few bars of taps for the exploded frog in the Italian version of OF is a nice touch! FC and WC have multiple parts. TMCM is wonderfully frantic music, well matched to the lively colored cartoon work! Overall, the disc shows a strong integration of poetry and music.

1999 Les Fables de La Fontaine. CD. Racontées par Jean-Pierre Darras. Twenty fables and one "Le Thème des Contes." Sony Music Entertainment (France). ©1994 Puzzle Productions. $1.50 from jeff-9009 through Ebay, August, '03. This is a lovely CD, perhaps the one I would most recommend for articulate presentation of the original French fables. I listened to the first four of the twenty fables – FC, GA, TH, and WL – and enjoyed them thoroughly. WL is read, for example, with a strong sense of pace that fits the fable. There is an appropriately understated musical background and a few sound effects. The final "Theme of the Contes" is a rather haunting instrumental piece.

2003 Les Fables de La Fontaine. Racontées par Michel Galabru et Jean Topart. CD. Frémeaux & Associés. Unknown source.. This is the former 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 first disc has 22 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 packaging here displays 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.