(previous post that I wanted to share here)

I turned on the Symphony Hall channel on Sirius XM tonight and heard the last bits of a song called “En avril à Paris” (In April in Paris) by Charles Trenet but arranged for solo piano by Alexis Weissenberg.

This was an absolutely lovely song so I had to go and listen to the whole thing.

The version playing on Symphony Hall was from a 2021 recording called “Carte Blanche” by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. [Apple Music]

I had never heard of this artist before and this recording of solo piano works as a whole is quite good, ending with his own arrangement for solo piano of Barber’s “Adagio for Strings”.

The guy on Symphony Hall also mentioned a live recording of “En avril à Paris” from an artist named Marc-André Hamelin on a 2009 compilation called “Rarities of Piano Music 2008 - Live Recording from the Husum Festival”.

Here is Hamelin playing the song in a 2019 performance [YouTube].

But what about Trenet himself?

You can read the Wikipedia article yourself but Trenet was a renowned French songwriter/entertainer. One of his famous tunes from 1946, “La Mer”, would be recognizable by American audiences as “Beyond the Sea” made famous by Bobby Darin in the 1960s. The melody is the same anyhow, the words not so much.

I love just about anything French so I had a listen to Trenet’s own version of “En Avril”. I found it [Apple Music] on a recording called “The Extraordinary Garden”

I’m not sure when this version was recorded. Based on the sound I’d expect the mid-1950s, possibly sometime in the 1960s.

If you like French music this album is a real treat. Everything just feels so light and refreshing - a nice break from the news of the day.

Next up in my French artists (though Baker was an American she made many recordings of French music) to explore: Josephine Baker.