CHARLES GOUNOD (1818-1893): Biondina, Venise, La Rondinella pellegrina, Oh! Dille tu!, Solo Piano: La Veneziana, La Pervenche, Le Ruisseau, Pensée "À la lune", PAOLO TOSTI (1846-1916): Non t'amo più, Tormento, L'ultima canzone.

Description: Here we have the Gounod who felt his true home to be Italy, with his half-hour long song-cycle written in the early 1870s while in London and which tells the tale of a poet who falls in love with his blonde neighbor, marries her and suffers her early death. None of the other three Italian songs nor the solo piano pieces are currently in print and the excellent notes trace out all the Italian influences in Biondina and their echoes in other of Gounod's (French) works. Italian-English texts. David Lefort (tenor), Simon Zaoui (piano).