GUSTAVE SAMAZEUILH (1877-1967): Le Chant de la Mer, Suite in G, 3 Petites Inventions, Naïades au soir..., 4 Esquisses, Évocation.

Description: For whatever reason, we missed this 1999 recording so we offer it now: this Bordeaux-born composer wrote sparingly due to his other careers as musicologist and critic but these piano pieces show a winning combination of Debussian Impressionism and the Schola Cantorum school of Samazeuilh's teachers, D'Indy and Dukas. Le Chant de la Mer is the biggest work here, a three-movement, 22-minute tone-poem depicting the ocean's majesty, nocturnal mystery and serenity and (almost inevitably) violence during storms but everything here is attractive and worth getting to know, especially for collectors of French piano music of the Ravel-Debussy generation. Stéphane Lemelin (piano).