Agnew / Mccallum - Piano Music - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Although Alexandre Boely (1785-1858) is best remembered as an important Parisian organist-composer, his piano music is as good as unknown. Yet it is an important link between the Baroque and Classical worlds of eighteenth-century France and the emerging Romanticism of the nineteenth. This recording, on an Erard piano from 1853, highlights both it's Classical poise and it's Romantic charm. It reveals Boely as a forerunner of composers like Saint-Saens, whom he taught, as well as other piano pioneers such as Alkan, Chopin and Liszt, all of whom this prominent Parisian musician and teacher may well have known personally. Stephanie McCallum is Associate Professor in piano at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music of the University of Sydney, where she herself studied with Alexander Sverjensky and with the noted Liszt player, Gordon Watson. After advanced studies in England with the Alkan authority Ronald Smith, she made her Wigmore Hall debut in 1982. She has appeared extensively as a soloist in Australia, France and the United Kingdom. Her recording of the complete Alkan 'Recueils de chants' for Toccata Classics was received with universal praise. She followed them up with a Toccata Classics album of piano music by Guy Ropartz.

Piano Music - Piano Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 02/27/2008

Guy Ropartz was one of the unsung heroes of French music, often conducting the music of his contemporaries with his orchestra in Nancy. That element combines with the dignified manner inherited from his teach, Cesar Franck, and the delicate shades of Debussyan Impressionism, to create an atmospheric and attractive style, instantly recognizable as French. This recording contains two large-scale suites, the first an evocation of the French mountains, the other the piano version of a frothy ballet written for Serge Lifar They are completed by the Franckian Choral varie and two lighter pieces from early in Ropartz's career.