WILLIAM VINCENT WALLACE (1812-1865): La Louisiana, Music Murmuring in the Trees, Mazurka-étude, L'Absence et le Retour, To My Star, La Rapidité, La Force, A Flower of Poland, Nocturne Dramatique, The Empress, The Shepherd's Lament, Souvenir of Spain, The Bee and the Rose, Valse Militaire, La Cracovienne.

Description: Like Gottschalk (only a bit longer-lived), the Irish Wallace (not to be confused with the Scottish Wallace whose orchestral tone poems have been recorded by Hyperion) was a globe-trotting virtuoso (piano and violin), composer and adventurer. His piano compositions are often based on existing vocal music (see especially the disc below) and divide up between heaven-storming examples of keyboard virtuosity à la Liszt (as on this 79-minute disc) and those for salon and home consumption, over which Chopin's shadow falls most attractively. Rosemary Tuck (piano).