French piano music is doing well this month, and this admirably recorded Rubinstein disc is the more welcome for including some lesser known pieces. Chabrier and Poulenc in particular don't get recorded these days nearly as often as they deserve. I notice that not even Poulenc's Mouvements perpituels are in the catalogue at the moment, which is odd, since not so long ago every pianist seemed to be playing them. The two Poulenc Intermezzi Rubinstein plays are welcome additions too. Chabrier on the other hand now makes a strong showing since all his piano works have been recorded for Vox by Rena Kyriakou, but none of these is available outside the format of a three-disc set; and that goes for Faurè's Nocturnes as well, to which only Evelyne Crochet has been giving any attention lately.

There is nothing to temper enthusiasm for this record (except surprise that no stereo version of it has been announced). Rubinstein is at his best and is a superb exponent of French music, which indeed he has been known to champion even to the extent of playing the Ravel Valses nobles et sentiment-ales as his first encore when the same piece failed to get much response in the main part of one of his public recitals. (I am assured that this did once happen; I should like to have been there.) The presentation of this RCA disc is couched in terms of his paying "homage to French music": not a bad idea and he could do more records like it. And what about another in which he could play some of the music of this century that has been written expressly for him? Pieces by Stravinsky, Falla, Poulenc and Szymanowski quickly come to mind. Ah well, just a thought.

-- Gramophone, [3/1965] Reviewing RCA 6603