Etcetera Records presents this new release featuring French music for piano four hands from the Belle Époque in performances by acclaimed pianists, and long-standing members of the Etcetera family, Jan Vermeulen and Veerle Peeters.

Western Europe enjoyed a climate of relatively armed peace in which art could flourish practically carefree for more than four decades, from 1870 until the Great War. A period of social tranquillity then ensued, primarily in France and Belgium, which would inevitably leave its mark on various art forms. That period in French art, affecting the visual arts and music in particular, became known as Impressionism, although Debussy himself disliked the term. It was only after the war that people began to refer with some nostalgia to that beautiful, unfortunately bygone era as the Belle Époque.

This album features Gabriel Faure's Dolly, Maurice Ravel's Ma Mère l'Oye, and Claude Debussy's Petite Suite and Six Épigraphes antiques.