French Piano Music, an Anthology

Piano music is as essential to France as the opera is to Italy or lieder to Germany. This anthology, a broad cross-section of French piano music, selects and presents 44 short piano works ranging from 1670 to 1906. Twenty-eight composers, all French or active in France, are featured: Jacques Champion de Chambonni?res, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Andr? Campra, Fran?ois Couperin, Andr?-Cardinal Destouches, Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, Jean-Fran?ois Dandrieu, Jean-Philippe Rameau, Fran?ois Dagincourt, Louis-Claude Daquin, Johann Schobert, Fran?ois-Joseph Gossec, Charles-Henri Valentin Alkan, Georges Mathias, Camille Saint-Sa?ns, L?o Delibes, Th?odore Dubois, George Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier, Jules Massenet, Charles-Marie Widor, Gabriel Faur?, Benjamin Godard, Vincent d'Indy, C?cile Chaminade, Camille Erlanger, Gabriel Piern?, and this volume's editor, the well-known pianist, composer, and teacher Isidor Philipp.

Some of the pieces are extremely popular and favorites with pianists at all levels. Others, although equally important, are more obscure. Included is a wide range of compositions: courantes, passepieds, sarabandes, gigues, gavottes, preludes, minuets, waltzes, romances, scherzos, caprices. Works of special interest include Rameau's The Hen, Gossec's Gavotte, Saint-Sa?ns' Song Without Words, Lully's Courante in E Minor, and Couperin's Les Papillons.