In his second album of French song from the 19th and 20th centuries - following the ground-breaking Opium, released in 2009 - countertenor Philippe Jaroussky explores settings of poems by Paul Verlaine (1844-96). Verlaine has duly inspired many French composers - from his contemporaries, such as Debussy, Faure, Saint-Sa�ns, Massenet and Chabrier, through the following generation (Honegger and Var�se) to songwriters from the 1940s-1970s, including Georges Brassens, Charles Trenet and Leo Ferre. The album takes it's title from one of the poems in the collection Romances sans paroles ('Songs without words' - the musical connection again). Verlaine himself gave it an English name, 'Green', and there are no fewer than three settings in Jaroussky's recital - by Debussy, Faure and Andre Caplet, the latter best known for his orchestrations of Debussy piano music. For Green, Philippe Jaroussky and Jer�me Ducros are joined by distinguished guest artists Nathalie Stutzmann and the Eb�ne Quartet.