In the last years of his life, the great composer, violinist and swordsman Giuseppe Tartini labored at a cycle of sonatas for solo violin. Tartini is remembered by the general public only for his ‘Devil’s Trill’ Sonata but he is a far more important composer than that work would suggest: taken together, these sonatas form the most important composition for solo violin after Bach. At sic hours in duration, it is the largest integrated work for the instrument. The music is surprisingly lyrical, and frequently has echoes of folk music from Tartini’s Istrian homeland. Peter Sheppard Skaerved is the dedicatee of over 300 works for solo violin. His discography stretches from Telemann to many of the works written for him, and he was nominated for a Grammy in 2007. He is the leader of the Kreutzer Quartet and Viotti Lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music, London.

Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) was one of the most prolific composers of the twentieth century. His fundamental style is a Stravinskian Neo-Classicism, animated by the dance-rhythms of his native Poland. It is also energized by a masterly command of counterpoint. This second installment in this first-ever survey of his piano music demonstrates its stylistic range, from Neo-Baroque via Polish folk-music and the orient to the Blues. Early in his career, Tansman settled in Paris, where he was helped by Ravel, but he was also another of the Jewish composers forced to flee Europe by the Nazis. A native of Texas, Danny Zelibor studied at Texas Christian University, where he studied with Tamas Ungar winning numerous accolades and scholarships. A top prize-winner in the 2014 Los Angeles International Liszt Competition, he is also a graduate of the University of North Texas, where he studied with Joseph Banowetz. He is currently pursuing a degree in Collaborative Piano.

The Bulgarian Emil Tabakov (b. 1947) follows in the footsteps of such musicians as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, being active as both composer and conductor. Like Mahler, he prefers to write for large forces and now has ten symphonies to his name. Again like Mahler, Tabakov’s symphonies explore the darker side of the human spirit in epic scores as austere as they are powerful. Behind the plain title of Tabakov’s Concert Piece for Orchestra (1985) lurks an extraordinary explosion of violence and anger. The Fourth Symphony (1997) sandwiches a wild Bulgarian dance between two glacial slow movements, the second with an episode of Tchaikovskian lyricism at its centre; the finale is a dark, whirling moto perpetuo- a ride through hell. This is the third volume of a projected series of all ten Tabakov symphonies, most of them receiving their first recordings.

The Bulgarian Emil Tabakov (1947) follows in the footsteps of such musicians as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, being active as both composer and conductor. Like Mahler, he prefers to write for large forces and now has nine symphonies and an impressive series of concertos to his name. Again like Mahler, Tabakov's symphonies explore the darker side of the human spirit in epic scores as austere as they are powerful. Both the First Symphony and the Viola Concerto use small motifs to build up compelling symphonic structures, generating expansive, sometimes bleak, post-Shostakovichian landscapes that can explode with violence and energy. The composer and conductor Emil Tabakov began to compose at 14. From 1975 to 1979 he conducted the Ruse Symphony Orchestra. He then directed the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble, the Sofia Philharmonic and several others. Alexander Zemtsvo has been performing as a solo violist since the age of 15 and at 23, was appointed Principal Viola of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2012 he left the LPO to dedicate himself to a career as soloist, conductor and chamber musician. In 2014 he made his conducting debut with the International New Symphony Orchestra Lviv, and the next year was apointed artistic director and principal conductor.

Emil Tabakov is following after many great musicians. Like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, he is an active composer and conductor, following Mahler even more closely, he now has nine symphonies to his name. Tabakov's symphonies explore the darker side of humanity, often referred to as atmospheric and expansive. Both works, Symphony No. 8 and Five Bulgarian Dances are first recorded on this new release.

One of a group of Russian-born composers which is now being recognized as the New Jewish School, Joachim Stutschewsky (1891-1982) is featured on this new release. Stutschewsky’s Jewish heritage comes through in his compositions with his usage of Mediterranean sounds and klezmer influences. Cellist Aron Zelkowicz, pianist Luz Manriquez, violinist Jennifer Orchard, and clarinetist Marissa Byers perform this music with expert technique and sensitivity.

Like Korngold, Toch, Schoenberg, Zeisl and Zemlinsky, Richard Stöhr (1874–1967) was another Austrian composer driven into American exile by the Nazis. His generous output of music, being rediscovered at last in these Toccata Classics recordings, includes seven symphonies, much chamber music, songs, and choral and piano pieces. The first two of his fifteen violin sonatas offer a seamless outpouring of fin de siècle Viennese lyricism, with one good tune following another, in a style somewhere between Brahms and Korngold. Ulrike-Anima Mathe’s international awards include first prizes at the European Violin Competition in Vienna in 1985 and at the Young Concert Artists Audition in New York in 1988. In 1999 she was appointed violin professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Detmold. The American pianist Scott Faigen enjoys a distinguished career as concert pianist, composer and conductor. He has served on the faculties of the National Academy of Music, the North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Stuttgart Music Conservatoire. Since 1989 he has been on the faculty of the Mannheim Conservatoire.

Much of Shostakovich’s orchestral music was first heard in versions he prepared for piano four hands or two pianos – but most of these transcriptions have languished unheard since those early performances, usually given for friends and colleagues or for Party officials. This series, which uncovers all the transcriptions prepared by Shostakovich himself, continues with the first recordings of his two-piano versions of the Second Piano Concerto and the Fifteenth Symphony. This release continues the collaboration between Toccata Classics and the graduates of Joseph Banowetz's piano studio at the University of North Texas. Min Kyung Kim, born in Seoul, moved to the United States in 2008, earning her master's degree in 2011. She is currently a student researcher at the Texas Center for Performing Arts. Hyung Jin Moon is an active performer in South Korea and the United States. As a music educator, he has served as staff pianist at Lansing Music School in Michigan and currently is an adjunct faculty member at the Korea National University of Transport.

Terrific stuff.

Shostakovich’s work for piano duet and duo may be of lower profile than his symphonies, string quartets and solo piano repertoire, but still contains some of his finest music. Recordings have emerged from the Northern Flowers label and elsewhere, but this Toccata Classics set seeks to go a considerable step further. Shostakovich’s routine habit for his orchestral works was to make a transcription for piano four hands, so that the music could be ‘tried out’, not only for his own use, but so that Communist Party officials could hear for themselves and decide if a new work was suited to the ideals of the party and therefore appropriate for public performance. This version of the Symphony No.9 was therefore almost certainly written alongside the orchestral score. The work was famously supposed to be a massive celebration of victory over the Nazis in 1945, but turned out to have an entirely different character. The piano duet version of this piece is a highlight of this disc as you might expect, and with an excellent performance and recording the work takes on an entirely new life in this setting. In short, it ‘works’ as a piano piece, with only a few passages during the slower movements and the extended build-up towards the end of the final movement where the sustaining quality and colourful impact of orchestral instruments are missed to a certain extent. Right from the moment where Vicky Yannoula and Jakob Fichert hammer out the accompaniment and bring out that witty theme at 0:48 into the first movement we know we’re in for a treat. Much of the music has been described as ‘Haydnesque’ or indeed light and bouncy in nature, at times bringing the nervy rhythms of Prokofiev to mind, and this is something which makes it sound as if written for the piano. The clarity of the bass lines, the variety of ‘oom-pah’ rhythms driving on terrifically and the exposed nature of the harmonies all work in excellent fashion, and the whole thing is a discovery and a feast for Shostakovich fans.
 
Lighter works and arrangements are of course part of the Shostakovich piano canon, and the waltz and polka numbers here are ‘pop’ pieces which entertain but needn’t delay us too long. Malcolm MacDonald’s booklet notes go into the origins of these pieces in some detail. That Polka from the Ballet Suite No. 2 is perhaps the most familiar, and as a litmus test shows how much fun the Yannoula and Fichert duo can make of these minor works. ‘The Chase’ from the film score to Korzikana’s Adventures is a magnificently daft romp.
 
For the works with two pianos we get a still very good but slightly different recorded perspective, and there are one or two minor tuning issues – a twangy effect in one of the upper notes with the piano already used for the duet pieces, and between the two instruments on occasion. Have a listen at 1:47 on the opening movement of the Suite and you’ll hopefully hear what I mean. These are actually quite minor issues, but can’t be left unmentioned. The Suite Op.6 is Shostakovich’s earliest surviving two-piano work, and pregnant with the emotions surrounding the sudden death of Dmitri’s father in February 1922. The chiming bells and romantic overtones are very nicely played here, placed effectively in Shostakovich’s early idiom, performed with warm sonority and without too much stretching of the phrases in the beautiful Nocturne, and conveying all of the rhythmic verve of the swifter movements.
 
The Concertino is a later work, written for Shostakovich’s son Maxim and having some of the character of his second Piano Concerto which was to come a few years later. This work has if anything the most orchestral character of all the pieces here, and the duo builds up huge volumes of sound in a highly effective performance.
 
With some fascinating piano duet versions of Shostakovich’s symphonies to look forward to this promises to be a series to collect. None of the performances here disappoint, the recording standard is high, and Vicky Yannoula and Jakob Fichert have the measure and spirit of all of this music very much at their fingertips.
 
-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

Josef Schelb (1894–1977) is one of the better-kept secrets of German music. His output was substantial: he lost most of his early music in a bombing raid in 1942 but, as if to make up for lost time, wrote some 150 more works after that, in the tonally liberated, quasi-Expressionist contrapuntal tradition of Hindemith and Hartmann; Bartók was an important influence, too. The three pieces recorded here show Schelb capable of astonishing vitality in his mid- to late seventies: they display lean muscularity, freewheeling energy and luminous and transparent orchestration, often informed by bucolic nostalgia and lyrical melancholy.

The Karlsruhe-based Josef Schelb (1894-1977) is one of the better-kept secrets of twentieth-century German music. His output was substantial: he lost most of his early music in a bombing raid in 1942, but - as if to make up for lost time - wrote some 150 more works after that. These four, for clarinet in various chamber combinations, who his music emerging from the influence of Hindemith and Berg. They have a freewheeling energy, contrapuntal command and rhythmic charge of its own - often animated by a touch of devilish humor. Two of these works receive their first recordings here. The Busch Kollegium Karlsruhe was founded in 2013 to record a first album of chamber music for clarinet and strings by Adolf Busch, released in October 2013 by Toccata Classics.

The musical language of the New York-based Arnold Rosner (1945–2013) had its roots in the modal harmony and rhythm of pre-Baroque polyphony and evolved in an array of unusual directions, producing a style that is instantly recognizable and immediately appealing – as can be heard in the three works on this recording. Rosner’s Nocturne suggests the immensity – and the implacable violence – of outer space, whereas his overture Tempus Perfectum has its starting point in Renaissance dance. The monumental Sixth Symphony opens with music of volcanic ferocity and vehemence; the central Adagio then provides an island of troubled calm before the dignified opening of the finale presages a symphonic Allegro of wild, freewheeling energy; only when its immense force is spent does this powerful masterpiece sink to an uneasy close.

REVIEWS:

I first came across Arnold Rosner’s music on a 1990 Harmonia Mundi Modern Masters CD of tonal American 20th Century music, reviewed here and here (in a later reissue), and now available only as a download or second-hand. The work recorded there, the Responses, Hosanna and Fugue, was so evidently influenced by Vaughan Williams’s Tallis Fantasia that I was intrigued, to say the least.

This disc begins with the Nocturne Op.68, in which Rosner sought to suggest the movement of planetary bodies in the vastness of space. He tried to do this by initially evoking a mysterious swirling atmosphere that is occasionally interrupted by violent outbursts. Melodic fragments gradually coalesce into a melody for strings, which is further developed and intensified by the inclusion of the rest of the orchestra. Like many such ‘descriptive’ pieces composed over the last 150 years, one would never guess at the underlying creative stimulus, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

It is followed by Tempus Perfectum: A Concert Overture. Its archaic title reflects Rosner’s modern adaptation of a medieval form in 98 metre. Rosner was interested in early music and here he uses a type of canzona notable for its markedly rhythmic material and separation into distinct sections. The effect is of triads superimposed on the main theme at various points, and the work, which sounds markedly antique, gradually achieves a much more modern climax on (predominantly) strings and trumpets, before dying away.

The most impressive work on this superlatively recorded and performed CD, is Rosner’s 6th Symphony. Its first movement is one of extreme emotional turbulence, represented by ferociously explosive rather angular music that lasts for its ten-minute duration. I am strongly reminded of the first movement of the Vaughan Williams Fourth Symphony, although Rosner is not quite so dour.

I don’t think there can be much doubt that throughout the Symphony this influence persists, and the Sinfonia Antartica informs the second, slow movement. In fact, I am indelibly reminded of the ‘Landscape’ movement of the RVW work. Having said that, Rosner doesn’t quite manage to conjure up the stupefying power so evident in the Antartica, despite a slightly more colorful orchestral palette and a willingness to use the tam-tam almost to abandon. RVW brings an organ to the shattering climax of his symphony, but an organ is one instrument not employed by Rosner. The movement begins in a hushed atmosphere, with a slightly oriental sounding theme. This is developed towards the emotional centre of the movement where the composer’s use of strings (to emphasize the melody) is gradually superseded by the appearance of woodwind, brass and percussion to great effect.

His gift of writing impactive and indeed, memorable music, is very noticeable throughout the work, but particularly so in this movement and in the last, where RVW in ‘galumphing’ mode makes an appearance early on. A reliance on the cymbals and later, the tam-tam disturbs me a little – this is a trait that is very evident in the works of some contemporary American tonal composers, perhaps influenced, however subconsciously, by film music. Notwithstanding, since I love the sound of cymbals and tam-tam in a sumptuous orchestral panoply, I will remain only very slightly disturbed and revel in the sheer orchestral splendour of the whole thing. The final five minutes or so of the last movement begin with an ethereal woodwind solo, which appears repeatedly, sometimes on the brass, only to be interrupted by cataclysmic eruptions. The movement fades into silence with quiet recollections of earlier themes.

Throughout this CD the recording is truly splendiferous and the playing of the LPO is virtuosic beyond praise. It must be wonderful to hear these pieces performed live by this top-notch orchestra under the baton of a committed conductor, such as we have here in Nick Palmer. The booklet is detailed and informative in both biographical and musical detail. Toccata Classics are to be congratulated and praised for this release, consisting as it does entirely of first recordings. I look forward to others in the series.

-- MusicWeb International (Jim Westhead)

New York based composer Arnold Rosner (1945-2013) composed in a style that was thick with pre-Baroque polyphonic modal harmonies and rhythms, and rich with Romantic colors, creating his own unique style. Opening this album is his piano concerto, which, incredibly, was composed before Rosner had any formal musical training. This is the first release from the London Philharmonic Orchestra on Toccata Classics.

REVIEW:

It is encouraging to see that interest in Arnold Rosner’s music continues even after his death in 2013 at the age of 68. One of his major champions has long been Fanfare writer Walter Simmons, and his notes accompanying this disc are as good as it gets. Another of his champions has been David Amos, who has conducted many of Rosner’s works in the past.

Rosner’s style is hard to describe. On the surface, one can say that his music is conservative, tuneful, and easily accessible to any audience. But that makes it sound too simplistic and perhaps unoriginal. The more of Rosner’s music one hears, the more one learns that he has his own unique sound. Some of that is because of his interest in modal harmonies and the polyphony found in early music. But he also reveals a slight jazz influence (particularly noticeable in the outer movements of his Piano Concerto here). Most importantly, there is an emotional truth in his compositions. It never sounds like empty effects, nor is it solely written to entertain. While he never minimizes the value of entertainment, neither does Rosner shrink from its power to move, to stir deeper emotions. The Largo of the Piano Concerto begins and ends calmly, but travels a huge distance that includes genuine emotional turmoil and struggle.

Gematria is a work influenced by the composer’s Jewish roots, taking its inspiration from Kabbalah mysticism, but not literally basing itself on the numerology central to that world. This work is haunting, and reading Simmons’s explanation of its structure is a great help in absorbing it. The music is brilliantly scored and gains in power and intensity as it goes, and then unwinds without ever fully relaxing.

Six Pastoral Dances is a suite that recalls (but doesn’t imitate) Respighi’s Ancient Dances and Airs, except that Rosner’s tunes are all original with him. The suite is lightly orchestrated for wind quartet and string orchestra, and while it strongly references an Elizabethan style and tone, Rosner’s voice is not completely subsumed. His signature use of chromaticism is evident throughout. These are very pleasant, piquant pieces that would be a meaningful addition to any chamber orchestra’s repertoire.

Aside from the Piano Concerto, the other major work on the disc is From the Diaries of Adam Czerniaków. To quote from Rosner’s own introduction to the score: “Adam Czerniaków was the Chairman of the Judenrat, or Jewish local government, in the Warsaw ghetto from 1939 (the beginning of the German occupation and administration of the ghetto) until 1942 when he took his own life during the time of mass deportation of the population to death camps in the east…”

Czerniaków kept a secret diary, excerpts of which are read by a narrator over dramatic and deeply moving music. As one would expect, this music is much darker, more somber, than much of Rosner’s output. At moments it sounds like a very effective Hollywood score. That is not meant as a backhanded compliment; the best film scores heighten the tension in the dramatic scene, and that is the way this score interacts with its text. The diary is read in an English translation, and in a powerful, understated way by Peter Riegert. One is grateful that Riegert avoids the temptation of turning melodramatic in reading this horrifying text, and it can be said that Rosner’s music also stays away from that pitfall. It is moving, at times even harrowing, but never cheap or sensationalistic. One central orchestral passage, from 12:47 of the piece, is extraordinarily poignant at first, then alternately desolate and proud in its character.

The performances and recording quality are first-rate. As indicated above, the accompanying notes are extremely insightful and informative. Strongly recommended.

-- Fanfare (Henry Fogel)

The musical language of the New York-based Arnold Rosner (1945-2013) clothes the modal harmony and rhythm of pre-Baroque polyphony in rich Romantic colors. This combination produces a style that is instantly recognizable and immediatley appealing. These four chamber works embrace a wide range of emotions, from tragic nobility to buoyant good humor, with Rosner's use of modality adding a hint of the Orient. All these pieces are receiving their first recordings, and many of the performers were personally acquaitned with the composer. A former member of the New World String Quartet, Curtis Macomber has performed across the United States, playing in hundreds of premieres, commissions and first recordings of solo violin and chamber works by major composers. The cellist Maxine Neuman, on the faculty at the New York School for Strings and Hoff-Barthelson Music School, was a friend of Arnold rosner for almost 50 years and gave the first performance of his Cello Sonata No. 1. The bassoonist David Richmond, a member of the Sarasota Opera Orchestra in Florida, has performed with orchestras throughout New England and now spends increasing time in Nairobi, introducing young Kenyans to the bassoon. Margaret Kampmeier, who teaches at Princeton Univeristy and the Manhattan School of Music, performs regularly with the ORchestra of St. Luke's, the New York Philharmonic, American Composers' Orchestra and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Carson Cooman is a pianist and organist, and is also a composer whose catalogue numbers more than a thousand works. Arnodl Rosner chose him to be the curator of his musical archive.

REVIEW:

The four works on this disc represent over 40 years of Rosner’s half-century career. The Violin Sonata, originally written when Rosner was 18 and subtly revised 10 years before his death, is cast in the traditional fast-slow-fast mold. The first movement is delightfully high-spirited, with a catchy first theme made up of a rising sequence of descending scales. There are moments of lyricism and contemplation throughout the development, after which the swirling interplay of thematic elements rushes to a stirring conclusion. The second movement is heartrending in its fine-spun melody and solemn accompaniment. The central section features a repeated pattern of high bell-like tones. The final movement is a hectic, fierce tarantella, guaranteed to get the blood pumping. Walter Simmons’s superb program notes indicate that Rosner’s revision of this sonata was purely a matter of “developing [thematic materials] more subtly and sophisticatedly” rather than of altering the character of the work. The sonata’s musical materials are impressively mature and clearly retained Rosner’s interest over the course of his long career. It’s an ideal introduction to both the young and the seasoned Rosner for those who have not yet heard his work. Both the violin and the piano playing are extremely strong: free and expressive in lyrical passages, punchy and precise in more rhythmic passages. The balance is shifted just a bit more toward the violin than I find ideal, and we miss some of the imitative interplay between the instruments (this holds true for the remaining duo works as well), but the sound quality is otherwise a warm and faithful representation of a concert experience.

The Danses à la mode are four brief pieces for solo cello, evoking (respectively) Greek dances, the raga of India, the sarabande, and Scandinavian dance music. The first two dances feature double-stop drones. Frequent mordents in the first suggest vocal ornamentation. Portamentos and the interplay of melody above and below the drone in the second suggest sitar gestures. Rosner’s Sarabande, which I find to be extremely beautiful, features a lyrical minor-mode melody and a central section of pizzicato triple-stops. The final dance is a rapid whirl of register exchanges and gruff low notes. The suite as a whole is a virtuoso tour de force, and Maxine Neuman handles its demands with utter aplomb and consummate musicianship.

The Bassoon Sonata, composed in 2006, is the latest work on the program. It is largely contemplative and somber. A searchingly expressive bassoon solo of ambiguous tonality begins the piece, eventually merging with the piano to form a minor triad. The movement’s stateliness, its inexorable intensification of despair as piano and bassoon exchange ideas, and its conclusion of quiet resignation bear a family resemblance to some of Peter Mennin’s slow movements, though Rosner’s harmonic palette diverges considerably from Mennin’s far harsher language. The piano and bassoon trade a rising and falling triple-meter motif throughout the brisk second movement. Of particular interest is the contrast between the pedaled open-sonority accompaniment and the unpedaled thematic material. The final movement seems to begin like the first, with a searching bassoon solo; this soon reveals itself to be the subject of a canon, however, answered precisely by the piano’s entrance. It builds quickly to a darkly emphatic statement. The grim outlook of the first movement pervades this movement as well, though its ebbs and flows are periodic rather than overarching. The canon is revisited toward the end of the movement, its first entrances now both in the piano. The effect is not as attractive as the initial duo, but the entrance of the bassoon leads to an extremely poignant ending, emphasizing a conflict between major and minor triads. Again, both instrumentalists do the piece exceptional justice from both a technical and emotional standpoint.

At over 21 minutes and with a particularly intricate formal structure to its first movement, the Cello Sonata is the most ambitious work on the recording. An outraged, plaintive character prevails throughout the first movement. The cello tumbles from screaming high notes in cascades of rhapsodic scales. The piano accompanies with declamatory material (again, a bit too far in the background). There is some kinship with the string writing of Ernest Bloch, though Rosner’s voice is very much his own. The second movement alternates between a brooding melody (first in the cello, then in the piano) accompanied by open fifths (first in the piano, then in the cello) and sudden, brief, sprightly dances. The effect is of a repeated jolt between emotional poles of solemnity and celebration. The final movement is propulsive and joyous. The brief melodic motifs are very prominent, almost to the point of obsessiveness. Quiet episodes provide brief moments of repose in the general atmosphere of celebration.

This recording is a must-have for anyone who appreciates traditionalist contemporary music and for anyone who appreciates the musical values of the pre-Baroque. Also, and most important, it’s deeply gratifying on an emotional level.

-- Fanfare (Myron Silberstein)

It’s encouraging to see more and more of Joseph-Guy Ropartz’s music being recorded, as a casual glance at Amazon reveals. Timpani have led the way in promoting this unsung and largely forgotten composer; a couple of years ago I reviewed a delightful CD of instrumental music. I’m particularly fond of the five symphonies, a good starting point, and the six string quartets are similarly worth exploring. It’s promising that Toccata, a label to be lauded for its ventures off the beaten track, has now taken up the cause with this new release of the composer’s piano music; ‘first recordings’, as it states on 'the tin'.

Ropartz lived a long life into his nineties. He was born in Guingamp, Côtes-d'Armor, Brittany, into a wealthy family. He started off on the path of law but in 1885 entered the Paris Conservatory, where he studied harmony with Theodore Dubois and composition with Jules Massenet. It was around this time that he struck up a friendship with the Romanian composer Georges Enescu. In 1887 he entered the organ class of César Franck. In 1894 he moved to Nancy in the east of France, where he became director of the Conservatory, a post he held for the next twenty-five years. This was followed by a ten year stint (1919-29) in a similar position in Strasbourg. Retiring in 1929, he went on composing until 1953, when he was struck down with blindness. He died two years later.

Opening the disc is the suite Dans l’ombre de la montagne, the most substantial work here. The sombre narrative extends across all seven movements, with recurring motives throughout, providing an idée fixe. Ropartz takes his lead from Vincent d’Indy’s Poème des Montagnes, Op.15 and Promenades, Op. 7 by Albéric Magnard, both of which have been recorded by McCallum. She suggests that Ropartz makes direct reference to the d’Indy work in his title. The music throughout is generally of a bleak, thoughtful and reflective persuasion, with some respite being provided by the more animated and cheery fifth movement, marked ‘Ronde’. Stephanie McCallum’s performance of intensity and rhetorical eloquence has exceptional appeal.

Originally conceived as an orchestral work for the Paris Opera Ballet in 1929, Un Prélude Dominical et six pièces à danser pour chaque jour de la semaine is cast in a more joyous and optimistic vein than the previous work. The ballet characterizes each day of the week with its associated activities. The score showcases Ropartz’s more impressionistic style, and the music is awash in colour which McCallum imaginatively conveys in this piano arrangement which the composer made in 1930. I particularly like the reflective contrasts in Jeudi, the fifth movement. The jaunty swagger of Samedi brings this alluring suite to a close.

The Choral varié of 1904 clearly shows a Franckian influence, almost taking its lead from Franck’s organ chorales. Indeed, the piece was arranged for organ by Ropartz’s student and later colleague at Nancy, Louis Thirion. It consists of four variations on a chorale, each separated by a fermato, whose duration is stipulated by the composer. Having listened to the work several times, I can imagine its character more successfully expressed on the organ. The final two pieces La chanson de Marguerite: Caprice Valse and First-Love: Bluette of 1886, predate the composer’s contact with Franck. These seductively lyrical pieces have an endearing intimacy. McCallum's performances encapsulate the affability, genteel charm and captivating essence of these beguiling miniatures.

These are winning performances, warmly recorded, and make a strong case for both the attractiveness and quality of this composer’s music. Stephanie McCallum’s enthusiastic advocacy adds to the success of the mix. Peter McCallum’s detailed annotations, in English only, provide fascinating and informative background. Will there be any more of Ropartz’s piano music to come? Let's keep our fingers crossed.

– MusicWeb International (Stephen Greenbank)