A stunning two-disc set from the favoured pianist of Les Six, Marcelle Meyer.

Is there is any other pianist of the twentieth century who, like Marcelle Meyer (1897-1958), can boast such a close relationship with the composers of which she would later become the interpreter. Born in 1897 in Lille, she spent her life in Paris. She was a student of Marguerite Long and Alfred Cortot, and then of Maurice Ravel. Meyer collaborated with a very young with Debussy and performed the first ever recital entirely dedicated to the composer, including the famous Preludes and premiering the Etudes, at the Salle Gaveau. Meyer also became Erik Satie’s favoured pianist and she premiered Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for piano four-hands together with Poulenc and also collaborated with Chabrier.

Marcelle Meyer became the favoured pianist of Les Six, also performing for Stravinsky and Milhaud. Indeed, Marcelle is the central figure in the famous portrait of Les Six by Jacques-Emile Balance. (The painting depicts Jean Cocteau, Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger, Louis Durey, Georges Auric, Francis Poulenc and Jean Winer).

In the last years of her life, Meyer fortunately recorded in stereophonic sound the best of her repertoire and between 1955 and 1957, she recorded the integral of Debussy’s Preludes and the best of Emanuel Chabrier’s piano works, recordings that this double box faithfully reproduces.