Performing on a 1930s Pleyel harpsichord, its development being helped along by pioneering harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, Christopher Lewis has chosen a program of 20th c. works by French or France-based composers. Poulenc’s colorful Suite française is followed by Jean Françaix’s exciting and previously unrecorded Deux Pièces. Martinu’s lyricism and intensity of expression can be heard in the Sonata and his other pieces, while Louis Durey’s piquant Dix Inventions is both homage to Bach’s Two-Part Inventions and a work whose compositional technique is firmly rooted in the modern era.
