Chicness, elegance, humor when it's not a good laugh, these are the ingredients of this well-known album. Brilliantly recorded at the start of stereophony by the engineers of the famous American label Mercury (that Philips will buy in the 60s); this is a very happy celebration of Emmanuel Chabrier's music. Paul Paray has no equal to sway the rhythms of España and vibrate the space of the Pastoral Suite. In this score, the friend of the painters who were Chabrier (he owned, in his apartment Avenue Trudaine in Paris, an exceptional collection of paintings of his friends Manet, Monet, Sisley, Cezanne) dresses four movements of its Pièces pittoresques from a seductive orchestral palette, from the delicate pastel sound of the marvelous Idyll (which made Poulenc lose his head) to the diaphanous colors of Sous-bois to finish at the ball of an imaginary festival with Scherzo-Waltz. Fête polonaise, Joyeuse marche and the breathtaking Overture of Gwendoline complete this reference monograph devoted to one of the most smiling French composers. FH (© Qobuz)