JEHAN ALAIN (1911-1940): Choral Dorien, 2 Préludes profanes, Choral, Étude de sonorité, Romance, Nocturne, Suite facile I - con moto, Suite facile II - comme une barcarolle, Ecce ancilla Domini, Étude sur les doubles notes, Prélude, lumière qui tombe d'un vasistas, Histroire d'un homme qui jouait de la trompette dans la forêt vierge, Il pleuvra toute la journée, Comme quoi les projets les plus belliqueux finissent souvent par un bâillement ou une promenade in barque, Nocturne, Chanson triste, Petite Rhapsodie, Étude sur un thème de 4 notes, Dans un rêve laissé par la ballade des pendus de Villon, Tarass Boulba, Encelade, Icare, etc., Andante, Lettre à mon amie Lola Bluhm, Un spécimen d'harmonies consonantes, Suite monodique.

Description: One almost only ever hears Alain's organ music but his piano pieces, most of them short (here there is nothing longer than the seven-minute Andante if you count the Suite monodique movement-by-movement), have the same feeling of a really young but also very mature man writing furiously to get out as much of the music that crowded his brain before dying in battle during the waning days of the French resistance to the German invasion. Pieces with a religious calm (and medieval and Renaissance techniques) sit next to pieces which have a touch of Impressionism or late Romanticism which are beside little tone poems (like the colorful Tarass Bulba...). The first three items as listed above are recorded in their piano versions for the first time. Jean Dubé (piano).