SKU: CY.CC2737

Debussy's General Lavine - eccentric, is taken from his Book II of Piano Preludes written in 1912. It is in the style of a Cakewalk, a dance developed in the late 19th century at get-togethers on slave plantations in the southern United States.

The music is based on Edward Lavine, a famous vaudeville performer whose act was presented at the Marigny Theatre around the same time. It is the only work by Debussy composed as a musical portrait for a human personality.

The music of about 3 minutes in length is appropriate for advanced performers.

SKU: CY.CC2722

The Chants du Rhin (Songs of the Rhine), a cycle of six pieces, based on poems by Joseph Mery, were written in 1865, and Bizet performed two of them on 16 April 1866 at a soiree of the Beaujolais Philharmonic Society. The songs are grouped symmetrically around La bohemienne as the central piece, framed by two meditatively yearning pieces (in E and D flat major) and two vividly exuberant ones (similarly in E and D flat major), with L'aurore serving as an introduction.

In this cycle Bizet takes up the theme of the gypsy girl which had already entered European music in the operas The Bohemian Girl by the Irish composer Michael William Balfe and Verdi's Il trovatore, as well as in Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies for piano. Bizet will return to it one year later in La jolie fille de Perth and ten years later in Carmen. The fourth piece Les confidences shows similarities in tonality, structure and motifs to the middle part of the third movement of Chopin's Sonata in B minor.

This version includes parts in B-flat treble clef as well as bass clef.

SKU: CY.CC2608

Lalo was born in Lille (Nord), in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck. For several years, he worked as a string player and teacher in Paris. In 1848, he joined with friends to found the Armingaud Quartet, playing viola and second violin. Lalo's earliest surviving compositions are songs and chamber works. He dedicated most of his career to the composition of chamber music, which was in vogue, and to writing works for orchestra.
These two works beautifully arranged by Mr. Sauder show the core of Lalo's chamber music; personal, subtle at times and filled with a French lyricism.
For advanced performers.

SKU: CY.CC2727

Paul Marie Theodore Vincent d'Indy was born in Paris into an aristocratic family of royalist and Catholic persuasion. He had piano lessons from an early age from his paternal grandmother, who passed him on to Antoine François Marmontel and Louis Diemer. His main influence was Cesar Franck. These three pieces were some of his many works for Piano. Opus 33 was inspired by a trip to Bayreuth, the musical home of Wagner and the Black Forest region. Opus 33 no. 1 from 1889 is titled ? with no explanation of itself. Opus 33 no. 10 is titled Lermoos, which is a delightful skiing village in Austria right on the border with Germany. Germany's largest mountain is in perfect view, possibly giving the movement its spirit.
Opus 28 is a Serenade for Violin and Piano published in 1900. It is lithe, subtle and lyrical.