JOSEPH GUY ROPARTZ (1864-1955): Musiques au jardin, 3 Nocturnes, Jeunes Filles.

Description: Another Atma title which escaped us due to the label's distributor-hopping years ago, this five-year-old release offers a useful companion disc to Timpani's ongoing series of Ropartz' symphonies, orchestral and chamber music. A Breton version of John Ireland, Ropartz' musical imagination was always stimulated by the severe, sparsely-populated countryside of Brittany, its legends of supernatural creatures, its fervent Catholic faith and, always, the presence of the sea. Debussy's brand of Impressionism is evident throughout the Musiques (1916-17) and the Nocturnes (1911 and 1916) while Ropartz looks back to Couperin's musical portraits of people in his five sketches of young women from 1929 (although the dance one hears in La Nonchalante is, quite up to date, a tango). Stéphane Lemelin (piano). Original 2002 release.