Gramophone Awards
2018
Finalist - Solo Vocal

Presto Recordings of the Year
Finalist 2017
Editor's Choice

Gramophone Magazine
December 2017
Editor's Choice

Record Review
28th October 2017
Recording of the Week

Mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and pianist Fazıl Say share some tantalising, captivating and sensuous Secrets in this album of songs, centred on Debussy’s Trois Chansons de Bilitis, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Fazıl Say’s own Gezi Park 3 – which he and Crebassa premiered in 2014. Describing the recording sessions, Marianne Crebassa says: “Sometimes we worked in a kind of trance … there were some moments when nothing seemed to exist around us …”

Secrets includes Debussy’s discreetly erotic Trois Chansons de Bilitis, settings of texts by Pierre Louÿs that were inspired by ancient Greek literature, and Ravel’s sumptuous Shéhérazade, three contrasting songs that conjure up exotic moods rather than retelling the stories of the 1001 Nights. They are joined by a work by Fazıl Say that is inspired by his native Turkey, but which moves away from the spirit of legend and fantasy: Gezi Park 3 belongs to a series of works that he composed in response to the momentous civil protests that took place in in Istanbul in June 2013. Say and Crebassa gave its premiere in Bremen in September 2014, where it was heard as a ‘Ballad for mezzo-soprano, piano and orchestra’. Crebassa’s part is a wordless vocalise and the work is recorded here in a version for voice and piano.

"With her warm tone and often remarkable way with both vocal colour and verbal inflection, Crebassa is outstanding in this repertory, and in Fazıl Say she has an accompanist whose direct yet subtle approach matches her own.'the combination of intelligence, immediacy and subtlety is utterly compelling and marks ‘Secrets’ out as one of the finest French song recitals of recent years. I cannot recommend it too highly." - Gramophone Magazine