Paul Paray

Les oeuvres complètes pour piano

Among the very first pieces composed by Paul Paray in his adolescent years is the 1903 Scherzetto for piano, a work that so impressed the famed Parisian organist and composer Henri Dallier, then passing his summer vacation in the composer's native coastal town Le Tréport, that he took the boy under his wing and persuaded his parents to send him to the Paris Conservatory to complete his studies.Music written for piano was a constant throughout Paray's composing career, beginning with the works he wrote during his years of study in Paris (19041908), to others inspired by his stay in Rome after winning the Grand Prix for composition in 1911. The suite D'une âme... together with the String Quartet was conceived while Paray was a prisoner of war at Darmstadt (Oct. 1914 Nov. 1918). The Prélude en mi bémol mineur, composed in 1930, constitutes his last composition for this instrument.All the extant works Paul Paray conceived for solo piano (and one for piano duet) are collected in this volume, many of which have never before been published. Not included are piano reductions of his orchestral works made by himself or others and the piano solo part of his Fantaisie with orchestral accompaniment, also published by Editions Jobert.Works that may have been composed and lost, or perhaps only mentally conceived but never committed to paper are Trois Intermezzi (Cloitre, Trottemenue, Capricante), Anecdote, Impertinence, and Coquetterie. A second series of Reflets romantiques comprising Souple, Léger, Tendre, Energique, announced by the publisher, was never issued, and may in fact never have been composed.In preparing these works for publication, I have proposed tempo indications, where none was given by the composer, in the form of metronomic markings encompassed by brackets [ ].Eduard Perrone