Erin L. Woodhead

This hugely successful opera, heard and admired by Mozart during his sojourn in France, began a new kind of French musical drama. Glorious orchestral colours and wickedly witty ensemble pieces reveal striking musical and dramatic ideas, embracing the daring new ideals of the Enlightenment, while laying bare the innermost thoughts and feelings of the characters in a way that would inspire Mozart’s partnership with his librettist da Ponte. Mistaken identity, mysterious strangers, true love, duels and a happy ending!

Playing four-hands piano was both vital in the dissemination of music in the nineteenth century and also a popular domestic activity. The French composers recorded here span the Romantic century, from the salon charm of Chaminade and Massenet and the virtuosity of Alkan’s wild dance to the innocence of the family music-room in pieces by Chausson, Godard and Ropartz. The original 1853 Parisian Erard piano on which this recording was made combines warmth with bell-like clarity, because of its straight stringing, allowing it to produce a surprising variety of appealing, expressive textures.

David Greco and Erin Helyard present the first Australian recording of Schubert’s masterpiece on period instruments.