In French music, Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) forms a link between Romanticism and modernism: in Paris in the year of his birth, Chopin was still composing,...

In French music, Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) forms a link between Romanticism and modernism: in Paris in the year of his birth, Chopin was still composing, and by the time of his death, jazz was all the rage, while Stravinsky was championing neoclassicism. This present recording contains all of Faure's music for cello and piano, including the much-loved Elegie and Sicilienne - pieces that are sometimes described as ''salon music'', with qualities that caused Debussy to dub the composer ''the master of charms''. But interspersed with this lighter fare are also the two sonatas from Faure's later period when, suffering from increasing deafness, he developed a more pared-down style. Even though the sonatas came into being only a few years a part they are nevertheless quite different - appearing in 1917, Sonata No. 1 in D minor is very much a wartime work, at times almost violent. The G minor Sonata is altogether more accessible, with a vivacious finale that caused the composer Vincent d'Indy to remark to the 78-year old Faure: ''How lucky you are to stay young like that!''