The Flatterer: Piano Music of Cécile Chaminade —Joanne Polk, piano Steinway 30037)
Coming of age in Paris in the second half of the 19th century, Cécile Chaminade modeled her music on pieces by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Gounod, Bizet, and Franck—all renowned composers of serious Romantic music. When she reached her own compositional maturity in the 1880s, she made her mark writing in genres associated with these recognized masters. Yet her true voice emerged later, writing smaller character pieces for piano. Her so-called 'salon' pieces are the same kind of short works that Brahms and Chopin made popular — many are true virtuoso works, equal in technical difficulty to any of the concert etudes of Chopin or Liszt. Based on this small collection of Chaminade’s music, we can only wonder why she has had to wait so long to be admitted to the pantheon of great French Romantic composers. Joanne Polk, noted pianist and champion of music by female composers (most famously Amy Beach), makes her debut on the Steinway label with a collection of Chaminade’s piano works. Recorded by Grammy-winning producer Steven Epstein, the album celebrates an underrated composer whose music deserves a wider audience.
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