Les Contemporains, Book 3

In the early 1950s, Parisian publishers Gérard Billaudot and Pierre Noël put together a four-volume anthology of piano miniatures written by some of the brightest stars in contemporary music—mainly French composers, plus some others with connections to Paris. The music spans a wide range of difficulty levels, from easy to quite advanced; nevertheless, these collections were primarily intended for use in the home.

Aside from the delightful nature of these rarely heard gems, one of the true joys of these collections is that the publishers carefully arranged the works in an aesthetically pleasing order, so that one piece flows quite naturally to the next. So aside from being wonderful compendia, these books are also terrific set lists in their own right.

Taken together, the four books feature 62 different composers, each contributing one short work to the whole. A wide variety of styles is represented, but there is a certain unity to the expression as well; most pieces portray themes from childhood or everyday life, and all show the subtlety, intimacy, and delicate attention to sonority that are so characteristic of French music.

The sixteen pieces in Book 3 are listed below, followed by short descriptions of each composer.
00:00 — Shostakovich: A Happy Fairy Tale
00:40 — Poot: Little March
02:02 — Khachaturian: Adventures of Ivan – Waltz
03:49 — Gagnebin: Gigue
04:57 — Rodrigo: The Little Merchant of “Chanquetes”
06:10 — Lippe: Prelude
08:32 — Cortese: Gavotte
09:40 — Kabalevsky: Etude, Op. 27, No. 3
10:18 — Mompou: Cradle Song
14:19 — Genzmer: Short Piece
15:45 — Tansman: Song Without Words
17:52 — Harsányi: Etude
18:44 — Martinů: Improvisation
19:32 — Martin: Moonlight (Little Nocturne)
21:18 — Stubbs: Pantomime
22:38 — Marescotti: Rondin de Savoie

Peter Mowrey, piano (www.petermowrey.com)
Cortese, Luigi (1899–1976): Italian composer.

Gagnebin, Henri (1886–1977): Belgian-born Swiss composer.

Genzmer, Harald (1909–2007): German composer and academic.

Harsányi, Tibor (1898–1954): Hungarian-born Parisian composer and pianist.

Kabalevsky, Dmitry (1904–1987): Soviet composer, conductor, pianist, and teacher.

Khachaturian, Aram (1903–1978): Soviet/Armenian composer and conductor.

Lippe, Anton von der (1916–2004): Norwegian composer and conductor.

Marescotti, André-François (1902–1995): Swiss composer, organist, choirmaster, and teacher.

Martin, Frank (1890–1974): Swiss composer.

Martinů, Bohuslav (1890–1959): Czech composer.

Mompou, Federico (1893–1987): Spanish/Catalan composer and pianist.

Poot, Marcel (1901–1988): Belgian composer, professor, and musician.

Rodrigo, Joaquín (1901–1999): Spanish composer and pianist.

Shostakovich, Dmitri (1906–1975): Soviet composer and pianist.

Stubbs, Thomas: Background and dates unknown.

Tansman, Alexandre (1897–1986): Polish/French composer, pianist, and conductor.
Artwork: Paul Signac, Le Place Dauphine (1928) [public domain]

Видео Les Contemporains, Book 3 канала Peter Mowrey