Piano music is as essential to France as the opera is to Italy or lieder to Germany. This anthology, a broad cross-section of French piano music, selects and presents 44 short piano works ranging from 1670 to 1906. Twenty-eight composers, all French or active in France, are featured: Jacques Champion de Chambonnières , Jean-Baptiste Lully, André Campra, François Couperin, André-Cardinal Destouches, Jean-Baptiste Loeillet, Jean-François Dandrieu, Jean-Philippe Rameau, François Dagincourt, Louis-Claude Daquin, Johann Schobert, François-Joseph Gossec, Charles-Henri Valentin Alkan, Georges Mathias, Camille Saint-Saëns, Léo Delibes, Théodore Dubois, George Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier, Jules Massenet, Charles-Marie Widor, Gabriel Fauré, Benjamin Godard, Vincent d'Indy, Cécile Chaminade, Camille Erlanger, Gabriel Pierné, and this volume's editor, the well-known pianist, composer, and teacher Isidor Philipp.
Some of the pieces are extremely popular and favorites with pianists at all levels. Others, although equally important, are more obscure. Included is a wide range of compositions: courantes, passepieds, sarabandes, gigues, gavottes, preludes, minuets, waltzes, romances, scherzos, caprices. Works of special interest include Rameau's "The Hen," Gossec's "Gavotte," Saint-Saëns' "Song Without Words," Lully's "Courante in E Minor," and Couperin's "Les Papillons."