Musculation Pour le Fight

Lilya Zilberstein has already taken on some of the virtuoso pillars of the repertoire for DG—Brahms's Paganini Variations, the Mussorgsky Pictures, Rachmaninov's Third Concerto and so it is fascinating to hear her in music of a more subtle evocation and delicacy. And although her Debussy and Ravel are hardly consistent or to the manner born, they are rarely less than individual or distinguished. Like other Russian pianists before her she places greater emphasis on the music's sensuous and expressive warmth than on its formal clarity. Her response to say, ''Le soiree dans Grenade'' (from Estampes) is richly coloured and inflected (a reminder, perhaps, of Falla's awe of Debussy's Hispanicism) and in ''Jardins sous la pluie'' her virtuosity evokes a coldly drenched and windswept garden its flowers momentarily bejewelled by passing sunlight. She is also highly successful in the more objective patterning of Pour le piano, making the opening Prelude's fortissimo chording and shooting-star glissandos resonate with unusual power.

Ensembles specializing in the French Baroque have been busy resurrecting music that's both of interest to specialists and a lot of fun for anybody discovering that much of this repertory makes good party music – just as it did when it was composed. Boismortier was a composer from Lorraine who went to Paris and made good by pleasing well-situated patrons with attractive, somewhat kaleidoscopic music that was well suited to the needs of the instrumentalists they employed. Included on the rather confusingly titled Boismortier: Sonates pour basses are pieces for low-register instruments – viola da gamba, cello, and bassoon, as well as several pieces of perhaps didactic nature, with unspecified and thus adaptable instrumentation.

In 1743, two years before Rameau's Platee, Boismortier created an extraordinarily modern and madcap "comic ballet", Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse. As the exuberant plot unfurls, Cervantes' hero encounters monsters, enchanters, princesses and people from Japan, making for plenty of offbeat and audacious dances and choruses. Musical beauty rubs shoulders with satirical and irreverent comedy. A choice work for Herve Niquet, who leads his Concert Spirituel with unparalleled energy!

Between 1803 and 1968, the Grand Prix de Rome marked the zenith of composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In Maurice Ravels time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravels growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix, and the three-year stay at Romes Villa Medici that went with it.