From Ravel to Saint-Saëns or Britten, the vocal ensemble Les Métaboles, reveals its version of utopia to us.
Are you in need of some air ? A fairytale garden, a bucolic album, this third opus by Les Métaboles, reaches out to you. You can just amble through it or even fantasize about a relatively domesticated nature. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, is moved by the celestial sounds produced by Saint Cecile, the patron saint of musicians, and supernatural creatures inhabit the pretty Ormonde woods. The evenings are long, meditative and bewitching. Drama starts brewing when the birds of paradise return from war, then disappears when Lazy John finds love by cutting Scots’ broom....
In this extraordinary garden there are humans who sing in English as well as in French, with beautiful, expressive voices, able to adapt to different styles of musical writing and (re)creating the most fitting atmosphere on each occasion.
The repertoire mixes well-known pieces, such as Maurice Ravel's "Trois Chansons" (1875-1937), and others that are less well-known, such as transcriptions of "Le Jardin féerique" and "La Vallée des cloches", from the Ravellian cycles "Ma Mère l'Oye" and Miroirs. The nostalgic pieces by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) are to be rediscovered, the "Hymn to St Cecilia" by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) and his "Five Flowers Songs" are particularly appealing, and R. Murray Schafer (born 1933) offers a post scriptum of lavish vocality. 

In the galaxy of a cappella choral singing, the ensemble Les Métaboles, founded in 2010 and directed by Leo Warynski, is a star of the highest ranking.
 

Nearly four years after the release of "Une nuit américaine", an admirable panorama of American a cappella choral production between 1920 and the very beginning of this century, the choir Les Métaboles is once again spoiling us with Jardin féerique, a predominantly French album that reminds us of the prominent position that the group founded and directed by Léo Warynski occupies in the choral landscape.
The recording is now available and we can only warmly recommend to all lovers of this repertoire to plunge into it; it will delight them!

The quality of the sound balance and diction of the eighteen singers of the Métaboles can only be praised here. Both in the exercise of transcription (Jardin féérique, adapted from "Ma mère L'oye" by Thierry Machuel) and the more contemporary repertoire ("Miniwanka" by Schafer). A delicious choral and floral journey.

The ensemble sound of Les Métaboles is interesting, both solid and refined, very precise and clear, with soloists of the highest level. It is obvious that, under the direction of Leo Warynski, this ensemble has forged an original repertoire and, above all, a strong musical identity.

Les Métaboles, led by its conductor and creator Léo Warynski, continues its exploration of the choral a capella repertoire. This has brought us some fine discoveries of pieces rarely heard, such as for example the "Three songs" for a capella choir by Ravel, on a text by the composer, or even a number of pieces by Saint-Saëns, one of which, "The Flowers and Trees ", was also written by its composer. The thematic coherence of the program is ensured by the recurring subject of nature, which informs as much the pieces of French composers as Britten's "Five Flower Songs", the text of which is borrowed from different poets. From the great English musician, we hear with pleasure the superb "Hymn to St. Cecilia", a well-known piece across the Channel but, inexplicably, rarely performed in France. This cycle written on a text by the poet W.H. Auden was supposed to revive the tradition of the Odes at Sainte-Cécile of the late seventeenth century English. The CD ends with the very contemporary "Miniwanka or The Moments of Water" by composer Raymond Murray Schafer, a work that cleverly complements the thematic program of the album by his attempts to imitate the sound of water.

To testify to the level of excellence it has reached after ten years of existence, the ensemble Les Métaboles could not find better than the first track on this recording. Thierry Machuel's superb transcription of Ravel's "Jardin Féérique" allows it to unfold endlessly in a choral space that other planets will then come to cross during this voyage that is in turn soothing (Saint-Saëns' "Romance du soir"), dreamlike (Ravel's "La Vallée des cloches", transcribed by the master craftsman Clytus Gottwald) and hedonistic (various pages by Britten). Rich without unnecessary luxury, the interpretation of Les Métaboles always seduces by the exactitude of the intentions that their leader, Léo Warynski, knows how to obtain. In particular, in Raymond Murray Schafer's delectable "Miniwanka or the Moments of Water," which closes this enchanting journey.