Sixty Songs (Dover Song Collections)

Except for La Bonne Chanson and the later cycles, the bulk of Faure's excellent song output appeared in three collections of 20 songs each, published in both high- and medium-voice versions. 100 years ago, in 1908, he published the third of those, and made final revisions to the first and second. This Dover edition reprints all 60 (medium-voice versions) together. It's especially useful because the E.B.Marks/Belwin reprints of the three volumes are hard to find (with so many publication & distribution changes over the years), and might not even be available anymore; and the Hamelle/Leduc (official) French editions are surely more expensive. Always be careful with Dover's reprints, which in general are of uneven quality as some come from inadequate or undesirable sources; but this volume is a good one. (A bit weak in visual quality, coming from old originals, but strong on authority and completeness.)

I love Dover scores for their value for money. This one is no exception. Its sewn binding ensures that it will not fall to pieces. It contains reproductions of all the songs originally published in Hamelle's three-volume collection, plus a separate section with the poems' translations. The Contents list gives opus numbers for each song, plus the year of composition, year of first performance, and name of dedicatee. One reviewer has commented on the poor print quality. This is not Dover's fault, but relates to the poor quality of the printing in the original Hamelle editions. Dover have not re-typeset (or re-engraved in printing jargon) the music but have used a photographic reproduction process, so the music is in all respects identical to that found in Hamelle. I own copies of the Hamelle editions and I can vouch for the fact that they are no better than Dover's edition. In fact I would go as far as to say that Dover has improved on Hamelle by using a blacker ink, so the notes (if not the words) are easier to read. The words are hard to read because of the thin and spindly typeface, which is just as illegible in the Hamelle volumes. If you need the high-voice versions of the songs you will have to go to the expense of obtaining the Hamelle editions, but it would be worth getting the Dover edition in addition, partly for the translations and partly for having 38 of out of the 60 songs in their original keys, which are often equally suitable for high voice. Pianists of course will find this collection invaluable.

The printing on the copy we received was so poor some of the words are almost illegible. Poor print job. Don't usually have this issue with Dover Publications.