Creighton University

This CD was a revelation to me, through its 22 tracks, of the rich heritage of presentation of La Fontaine's fables as songs.  I enjoyed them!  Collaborators here are piano and four voices.  Lecocq's WL is an excellent example of contrasting wolf and lamb voices.  He also has a wonderfully dramatic finish to FC.  I found Offenbach's "Shepherd and Sea" eminently understandable.  The same goes for his GA.  Gounod has several voices, not necessarily in unison, working at once.  Caplet and de Manziarly are more "modern," that is, less predictable and "pretty."  I enjoyed particularly Caplet's WL with its great closing line and de Manziarly's OF.  I found Van Parys more easily comprehensible in his FC, including the inserted "coi, coi, coi."  Trenet's GA, among the shortest offerings, seemed to me more playful than others.  An auditory treat!

This disc surprised me.  Rap turns out to be a great way to understand La Fontaine!  The rap artist presents each fable quite briskly.  Jump on the bus, because it is leaving fast and moving fast!  Each fable is given first in its mixed form, with music and text, and then only the musical part is played – perhaps so that one can oneself rap?  I could not identify what is titled "Le Grenouille Et Le Boeuf."  It seems not to be La Fontaine's "Le Grenouille qui veut se faire aussi grosse que le Boeuf." 

This disc is a very pleasant surprise.  The texts of La Fontaine are presented verbatim, if not always at the same level of intensity or audibility.  But each text is encased in a true chanson, with its own rhythm and persuasion.  These chansons move!  I enjoyed the first four immensely, not least the conjunction of the third and fourth: "The Rat and the Elephant" and "The Frog Who Wanted to Be as Big as An Ox."  They are very much about the same pretentiousness.  The voices here work together wonderfully!  An accompanying little booklet with clever illustrations offers a key refrain from each song.

This is a lovely CD, perhaps the one I would most recommend for articulate presentation of the original French fables.  I listened to the first four of the twenty fables – FC, GA, TH, and WL – and enjoyed them thoroughly.  WL is read, for example, with a strong sense of pace that fits the fable.  There is an appropriately understated musical background and a few sound effects.  The final "Theme of the Contes" is a rather haunting instrumental piece. 

Here is another highly creative development of La Fontaine's fables.  I listened to and enjoyed the first three: "La Montagne Qui Accouche"; OR; and "The Coach and the Fly."  The last of these was, for me, the most clearly articulated.  Because the marriage of jazz and fable is somewhat breathtaking as an endeavor, I think the producer had to make some choices.  In that third fable, "The Coach and the Fly," I believe the choice was for articulate rendering of the words of the fable.  I believe that that effort succeeded.  In a fable like "La Montagne Qui Accouche," I believe his choice was more for the mood set by the jazz.  I believe that that effort also succeeded.  At the end of OR, there is a clever repetition of "Morts."  That word sums up wonderfully the end of the arrogant oak. 

Lively and articulate narrations of seventeen fables, separated by brief musical interludes.  This and a 1993 CD, also from Millaire and Stanké, may be the only CDs in our collection narrated by a Canadian, though I am sure I cannot tell the different in accent.  The disc is accompanied by a 48-page booklet offering the French texts of the fables with one colored and several black-and-white drawings of Anne Coté.  Our collection also includes a 1993 audio cassette of Albert Millaire reading, again for Alexandre Alexandre Stanké.  I could not establish any clear relationship between this CD and that cassette and could also not compare this CD and booklet with the CD and publication from 1993.

This is the former of two CD's that are apparently identical in content with the two-CD set from the same firm in 2012, which one can find elsewhere on this page.  This first disc has 22 fables, listed on the back of the packaging.  As I mention there, these CD's may be the best representation of a great reading of these, some of the best known fables of La Fontaine.  The packaging here displays many of the same notices of prizes these recordings have won!  The booklet offers the very same critique texts by Jean-Pierre Collinet as the booklet nine years later, now newly formatted, as is the packaging of the discs.  As there, one finds in the booklet plentiful Doré illustrations.

This is the latter of two CD's that are apparently identical in content with the two-CD set from the same firm in 2012, which one can find elsewhere on this page.  This second disc has 17 fables, listed on the back of the packaging.  As I mention there, these CD's may be the best representation of a great reading of these, some of the best known fables of La Fontaine.  The outer cellophane packaging here displayed many of the same notices of prizes these recordings have won!  The booklet offers the very same critique texts by Jean-Pierre Collinet as the booklet nine years later, now newly formatted, as is the packaging of the discs.  As there, one finds in the booklet plentiful Doré illustrations.  Did the first disc do so well that  they made a second disc a year later?  The first disc curiously shows no "Volume 1" to correspond to the "Volume 2" here.

"1 Livre + 1 CD Audio." This high-class CD comes inside the front-cover of a large-format book of the same name published by Gallimard Jeunesse in 2008. The book offers at its back a musical passage from each of the fifteen fables. The fables are rendered in highly complex music involving a number of instruments and several voices. This book and CD bring together a significant collection of songs, texts, facts, and art objects! The CD has imprinted on i

Several things are remarkable about this disc.  First is the price for which I was able to obtain it.  It could not be lower!  Next is that a goodly portion of the disc seems to repeat, from Puzzle Productions, readings of four fables by Jean-Pierre Darras from a disc we have, produced in 1999.  The third remarkable thing is that the other five presentations are as different as could be from Darras' readings.  They are a kind of "children's radio theater" presentation of the fables, complete with giggles, sirens, the sound of pouring lemonade, and church bells.  These are dramatizations of La Fontaine, sometimes – only sometimes, as far as I can perceive – using La Fontaine's words.  I suspect the voices of, for example, the town and country mice are sped up human voices.  TMCM seems to include several broken glasses or dishes and also a phone call to the town mouse.  I find the grouping of these presentations with Darras' readings jarring.  For the price, I guess I cannot complain.  We do not have the second volume, and I will not be seeking it zealously.

This is a disappointing CD.  Although it offers a variety of reciters, each of whom uses a variety of voices supported by orchestral music and sound effects, there are two serious drawbacks.  First, the sound quality is not the highest.  Secondly, while the jewel case advertises 24 fables, there are 17 tracks, and the last fable and a half are cut off at the end.  A good example of the various voices provided by one reciter is WL.  Similarly a peculiar voice for the fox in FC includes in his final putdown a good deal of laughing.  Louis de Funès recites the first ten fables.  There is an accompanying12-page booklet with photos of de Funès and Fernandel, but only some of the fable texts are provided.

This is a fine book with an excellent compact disc. Twenty fables appear, with at least one fine, detailed, full-page colored illustration per fable. The best among these illustrations may be for "The Coach and the Fly" (5), as the mosquito stands sweating after the coach can start downhill; for "The Small Fish and the Angler" (11); for GA (21); for "The Wolves and the Sheep" (32), where wolf and sheep bump fists to clinch their deal; and for OF (34). The illustrations are lively. There is a T of C on the back cover. The actors on the disc come from Le Théâtre Français. The tracks feature only voices, but they are excellent and nicely varied voices. The French keep on presenting their La Fontaine with distinction!

This disc largely repeats the 2010 disc of La Fontaine fables "Lue par Gérard Philipe et ses compères." That disc accompanied a book with illustrations by Bruno Vacaro, published by Le Chant Du Monde.  Our listing of it is on this same webpage.  The back cover of the present jewel case recognizes this earlier publication.  Three selections from that earlier disc are here dropped out – UP, LS, and "The Bat and the Two Weasels" – and two are added at the end: MM and "The Lapdog and the Ass."

The two CD's here offer 22 and 16 fables, respectively.  These CD's may be the best representation of a great reading of these best known fables.  Notice by the cover how many prizes these recordings have won!  The booklet offers insightful critique but not texts of the fables presented.  There are also plentiful Doré illustrations.

Here is something new.  Clérambault in the eighteenth century created children's music out of fables, set to vaudeville tunes and simple arias.  The texts by an unknown author are simpler than La Fontaine's.  They match well the catchy tunes to which they are put.  The result is delightful, not least when OF ends with a vocal sound like a balloon bursting.  The disc has twenty such fables and then six instrumental-only tracks for family karaoke.  With the disc is a 20-page leaflet including English translations of the prose descriptions and eight strong illustrations of fables by Thomas Carrere.