Beyond Debussy and Ravel: the world of

the French piano in all it's dazzling

variety, and in critically acclaimed

recent recordings.

Beyond a sensitivity to tone colour, very

little unifies this eclectic list of French

composers, who flourished from the

end of the Romantic era into our own

time. To move from the deft sketches of

Reynaldo Hahn's Le Rossignol eperdu,

and the scented harmonies of Benjamin

Godard's Op.58 cycle of 20 Pieces, to

the introverted gloom of Les Heures

dolented by Gabriel eduard Xavier

Dupont and the four-movement

Solitude by Louis Vierne, and from the

dense, Wagnerian counterpoint of

sonatas by Vincent D'Indy and Paul

Dukas, to the restless but crystalline

textures of the early Sonata by Henri

Dutilleux, is to stop off at quite different

stations on a map of creative work full

of destinations as distinct as any to be

found on the Paris Metro.

Critics have recognised that each of the

artists involved has invested intellectual

energy as well as technical mastery in

immersing themselves within these

individual worlds and personalities.

Mark Viner captures Chaminade the

poet beyond and further than the salon

composer of repute, as well as

measuring up to Alkan at his most

surprisingly charming in some of the

Etudes Op.35. Emanuele Torquati lends

a more romantic sensibility to Roussel

than we tend to associate with him,

while Sofia Andreoli shows that there is

an impressionist side to Magnard

beyond the densely worked

chromaticism of his symphonies and

cantatas.