Samazeuilh, Decaux, Ferroud, Aubert

Album review

After her first solo album at Artalinna devoted to works by Fauré and Dutilleux, pianist Aline Piboule leaves music's well-trodden path to offer us a selection of unknown and endearing French works. Aline Piboule likes, she says, "to decompartmentalise genres and eras in order to catch a glimpse of links which are often ignored, to taste the spirit of novelty, of actuality that hides behind the names of forgotten composers. That's how this exploration of repertoires fascinates me".

Friend of Fauré and Ravel, close to Richard Strauss, Gustave Samazeuilh left behind a very small catalogue of finely crafted works, of very personal and subtle writing. His work as an arranger and journalist, especially as a music critic, took precedence over his career as a composer. Aline Piboule exhumed her beautiful Clair de lune au large, the second part of the collection Le chant de la mer which she sets out ahead of the four Clairs de lune written by Abel Decaux, a Norman composer who studied under Massenet. An organist at the Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre, he settled in the United States for more than ten years before succeeding Louis Vierne as organ teacher at the César-Franck School. His suite Clairs de lune heralded the atonal language of Arnold Schönberg.

Lyonnais composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud remains known for having founded the Concerts du Triton in Paris, in the early 1930s. These were dedicated to chamber music with an international approach that saw the first performances of works by Stravinsky and Prokofiev. His shocking death at the age of thirty-six, in a terrible road accident in Hungary, deprived French music of one of its most promising composers.

A friend of Maurice Ravel, who asked him to give the first performance of his Valses nobles et sentimentales, Louis Aubert successfully tried his hand in all genres. A brilliant orchestrator, he is credited with five ballets, orchestral pieces and chamber music. His triptych Sillages, Op. 27, considered his masterpiece, is sometimes compared to the best works of his contemporaries, Debussy and Ravel. Aline Piboule knows how to translate all the mystery and appeal of the great outdoors. © François Hudry/Qobuz