CD 1:
Louis-Claude Daquin:
Le coucou

Mendelssohn:
Song without words, Op. 67/4

Chopin:
Waltz in F major, Op. 34/3
Waltz in G flat major, Op. 70/1

Schumann:
Fantasiestücke, Op. 12/1, 2 & 4

Schumann/Liszt:
Frühlingsnacht, S568

Moszkowski:
Valse d’amour (Liebeswalzer), Op. 57/5

Sinding:
Rustle of Spring

Debussy:
Golliwogg’s Cake-Walk
Minstrels
Masques

Ravel:
Rigaudon

Rhene-Baton:
Fileuses pres Carantec

Staub:
Sous-bois

Mozart:
Fantasia in C minor, K475

Chabrier:
Sous-bois
Idylle

Dukas:
La plainte, au loin, du faune

Roussel:
Sicilienne

Lazare-Levy:
Préludes 1, 2 & 5 from Vingt préludes
Valses

CD 2:
Couperin:
Les Lis naissans
Les rozeaux
Les rozeaux

Schubert:
Impromptu in A flat major, Op. 142/2

Schumann:
Des Abends
Traumes Wirren

Chopin:
Mazurka in C sharp minor, Op. 6/2
Mazurka in A flat major, Op. 50/2

Louis-Claude Daquin:
Le coucou

Debussy:
La cathédrale engloutie

Mozart:
Sonata No 10 in C major, K330
Sonata No 11 in A major ‘Alla Turca’, K331
Sonata No 8 in A minor, K310

This is the second release in an important new APR series devoted to the French Piano School. For around 150 years France has nurtured a distinctive style of pianism centred on the teaching of the Paris Conservatoire. The heyday of the school was probably the first fifty years of the 20th century and this series of recordings aims to explore in depth the often-forgotten recordings made at this time.

Victor Staub (1872-1953) and Lazare-Lévy (1882-1964) were both students of Louis Diémer at the Paris Conservatoire in the latter part of the 19th century and both were to follow in his footsteps as great teachers in that institution and elsewhere. Indeed, their list of pupils reads as a roll call of 20th century French pianists. However, they were also extremely fine pianists and this set presents, for the first time, their complete studio recordings. The Staub titles are almost forgotten and none have every been reissued before. Also all but unknown, is the 7” Crown LP Lazare-Lévy recorded on the ‘Siena pianoforte’ in Israel in 1951.

As one would expect, clarity, brilliance and refinement are much to the fore in these exemplars of the French School.

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Including Odéon recordings 1927-1929 (V. Staub); HMV France recordings 1929–1937 (Lazare-Levy); Japanese Victor recording 1950 (Lazare-Levy); Crown recordings 1951 (Lazare-Levy); Ducretet Thomson recordings 1952 (Lazare-Levy); Pathé recording 1955 (Levy)