Presto Recording of the Week, 26th June 2026
Claire Booth (soprano), Christopher Glynn (piano)
Poulenc: La Dame de Monte Carlo
Poulenc: Cocardes
Durey: Prière (from Chansons Basques)
Honegger: Six Poésies de Jean Cocteau: Locutions
Delage: Sobre Las Olas
Chaslin: Valse Langoureuse (from Chansons Pour Elle)
Milhaud: Caramel Mou, Op. 68
Sacre: Que Ne Suis-Je Un de Cette Egypte (from Clair-Obscur)
Auric: Huit Poèmes de Cocteau: Hommage à Erik Satie
Poulenc: La Voix Humaine
Bach, J S: Prelude in B Minor (Arr. Siloti / Cocteau: Visite)
Jean Cocteau was a relentless chameleon of the 20th-century French avant-garde—poet, playwright, filmmaker, and artist. Yet beneath his constantly shifting aesthetic masks lay recurring fixations: love, death, dependence, and abandonment. This brilliantly curated album from soprano Claire Booth and pianist Christopher Glynn stays close to Cocteau's artistic restlessness, charting a world where high art, melodrama, prayer, and cabaret collide without hierarchy.
At the center of the program stands Francis Poulenc's La Voix Humaine, a searing, claustrophobic 42-minute study of fractured telephonic communication and heartbreak. Performed here in its intimate voice-and-piano configuration, the performance strips away the usual symphonic padding to maximize the piece's raw psychological tension. Surrounding this masterpiece is a vibrant portrait of Cocteau's creative inner circle, featuring exquisite, characterful vocal miniatures by Milhaud, Honegger, Durey, and Auric.
"Hearing La Voix humaine shorn of its symphonic clothing pays huge dividends... its claustrophobic intimacy is dialled up to the max when only two performers are involved. In Glynn’s hands you barely miss the orchestral colours, whilst the freshness of Booth’s light, bright soprano reminds us that Cocteau conceived Elle as a young woman rather than a grande dame." — Katherine Cooper, Presto Music, 26th June 2026
