Hélène de Montgeroult

Pièces romantiques

Hélène de Montgeroult wrote a landmark in the history of the piano music literature: the Cours complet containing 114 studies and variations, one fugue and one fantaisie, and constituting a key link between the generation of Mozart and Clementi, and the one, fore- seen by the studies, of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin. The art of Hélène de Montgeroult, made of an extreme harmonic sensitivity, an already roman- tic tonal discourse, an invention of pianistic idioms (typical of the Romantiques), places her among the best composers of her generation along with Dussek, Steibelt, Cramer, Field and Hummel, though unlike some of them she never gave in to easy effects of pictur- esque pieces and pots-pourris.



(translation Philippe Do)