This latest issue in APR’s ongoing French Piano School series is perhaps the most important yet.

The set brings together some of the earliest and rarest piano recordings ever made, not just in France, but worldwide, and includes the complete solo recordings of all the pianists featured except Wurmser. Many are reissued for the first time. The French office of the Gramophone Company was a pioneer in bringing serious artists into the studio and the results are a legacy of the utmost historical importance. So too are the early Fonotipia recordings of Herz pupil Roger-Miclos and the later Columbia electric recordings of Planté, made in his 90th year. With Saint-Saëns, Diémer and Planté we can hear pianists who were born in the first half of the 19th century – a unique window into the past.

The latest digital technology has been applied throughout and now we are able to hear Pugno’s wonderful recordings, hitherto flawed by a vibrato caused by the unstable recording turntable used in 1903, with their pitch stabilised.

Contents:

CD 1
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) acoustic recordings of Saint-Saëns performing his own works, as recorded by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company, Paris, on 26 June 1904 & 24 November 1919, and the Gramophone Company, Paris, on 26 November 1920

Louis Diémer (1843–1919) acoustic recordings made by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company, Paris, in 1904 & 1906 – works by Godard, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Diémer himself

Vincent d’Indy (1851–1931) acoustic recordings of d’Indy performing his own works as recorded by HMV, Hayes, on 7 June 1923

CD 2
Raoul Pugno (1852–1914) acoustic recordings made by the Gramophone & Typewriter Company, Paris, in April & November 1903 – works by Handel, Scarlatti, Chopin, Liszt, Weber, Mendelssohn, Massenet, Chabrier and Pugno himself

Aimée-Marie Roger-Miclos (1860–1951) acoustic recordings made by Fonotipia in September 1905 (Paris) and on 15 November 1906 (Milan) – works by Godard, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt and Schumann

Gaston Régis (1879–1935) acoustic recordings made by the Gramophone Company in Algiers on 21 July 1921– Chopin

CD 3
Gaston Régis (1879–1935) acoustic recordings made by the Gramophone Company in Algiers on 21 July 1921 – Saint-Saëns

Francis Planté (1839–1934) electrical recordings made by French Columbia in Saint-Avit, Mont-de-Marsan, on 4 July 1928 – works by Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Berlioz, Boccherini and Gluck

Lucien Wurmser (1877–1967) acoustic recordings made in April & May 1911 by the Gramophone Company, Paris – works by Mozart, Chopin, Schubert and Wurmser himself