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Superior beauty and imagination speak from this song recital, in which French soprano Sandrine Piau explores 'mélodies' that reflect a passage from Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867): Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité, Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté, Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent. Reflet as an exploration of the nuances and transparency of the French song repertoire. This in contrast to the previously released album Clair-Obscur which was devoted to the German-language art song with orchestral accompaniment (discussed here by me). In the words of Sandrine Piau and Lea Weber: 'The reflection of an image embodies the idea of an echo, the shadow of a disquieting look-alike, a manifold flickering form, diffracted, eternally reborn, with a power to bewitch and deceive. In a pile-up of delusive mirages, a kaleidoscope of meanings and sudden flashes of lightning, it interweaves the music of our lives with strange relationships, clothed with golden illusions.' This album as a pile-up of delusive mirages, a kaleidoscope of meanings and sudden flashes of lightning, clothed in golden illusions, it interweaves the music of our lives with strange relationships, clothed in golden illusions. The art song in its supreme form brings us the perfect balance between text and music. It is not an exaggeration to say that the lover of songs is also a lover of literature and in particular of poetry. Anyone truly familiar with the song repertoire is equally familiar with the texts set to music. From her childhood, Sandrine Piau – as I read in the booklet – became fascinated by light, its glowing beauty and fleeting transience. The 'encounter' with composers and poets such as Berlioz, Britten, Duparc, Koechlin, Ravel, Gautier, Hugo, Verlaine, Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, Edmond Haraucourt and Mallarmé sparked a firework of colours and mirrored flashes of light in her. Clair-Obscur and now Reflet together form a diptych in which these mingled musical and pictorial emotions are reflected. Reflet! Together with the Orchestre Victor Hugo, based in Bourgogne Franche-Comté and conducted by Jean-François Verdier, Sandrine Piau, in terms of the high level of interpretation, follows in the footsteps of her previous album in which she likewise excelled in the field of ultimate atmosphere creation and thereby text illustration. Verdier, also an outstanding clarinetist, conducts the French orchestra with much evocative flair and the suppleness so necessary for the singing voice. The transparent recording leaves no detail unilluminated, but is also warm and sonorous.