Canteloube: Songs Of The Auvergne (Chants D'Auvergne)

World music meets the classics in these impressionistic tone poems based on the folksongs of the Auvergne, which Canteloube spent his life researching and orchestrating. In the ballads, Dawn Upshaw sounds like a nymph swaying in sacred pools; the earthy nature of the material captures the fuller-bodied richness of her sparkling soprano. Kent Nagano conducts with aplomb. The only drawback--the lighter, funnier pieces upset the ethereal mood so vividly created, and break up the dreaminess into which most of the music lulls you. --Barbara Eisner Bayer