Pascal Rog - Ravel - Faure - Poulenc - Ibert - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Album Tracks 1. Sonata for Flute and Piano (1956) 2. Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1962) 3. Élégie for Horn and Piano (1957) 4. Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1962) 5. Sonata for Piano Four Hands (1918, Rev. 1939) 6. Sonata for Violin and Piano (1942-3 Rev. 1949) to the Memory of Federico Garcia Lorca 7. Bagatelle for Violin and Piano (1932)

Pascal Rogé has over several decades, become the greatest interpreter of the French piano repertoire. His recordings of Satie and Debussy are benchmark performances, still unrivalled in the catalog. On this album he turns to Poulenc and is joined by cellist Lidy Blijdorp in the cello sonata, and pianist Elena Font in the sonatas for two pianos, and for four hands. Font plays the solo works included in this charming album of superbly crafted, elegant and sometimes witty music by this 20th century French master.

This is the second in an important new APR series devoted to the French Piano School. For around 150 years France has nurtured a distinctive style of pianism centered 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 ever been reissued before. As one would expect, clarity, brilliance and refinement are much to the fore in these exemplars of the French School.