Could a French woman make an international career for herself as a pianist after the Second World War by playing most of Debussy and Ravel, lots of Mozart and Haydn, and even some of Hindemith and Stravinsky, but no Beethoven or Brahms, no Liszt, next to no Chopin, no Schubert, and only a smattering of Schumann? Apparently Monique Haas could because she made a flourishing career after the war by embracing the French moderns and the Viennese classics, but virtually avoiding the German romantics. It made a certain sense. Haas was the quintessence of French piano playing -- her tone was clear, her technique was lucid, her colors were luminous, and her pedal was light -- and thus the ideal Debussy -- Ravel player, and therefore, by French logic, the ideal Mozart and Haydn player. In this lavishly filled nine-disc set of her recordings for Deutsche Grammophon made between 1949 and 1963, the best of Haas has been reissued together on CD for the first time. Every disc contains treasures -- the first's elegant Mozart concerto, the second's brilliant Haydn sonatas, the third's glittering Schumann Fantasiestücke, the fourth's glimmering Debussy preludes, the fifth's chastely sensuous Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales, the sixth's raptly radiant Bartók Third Concerto, the seventh's superbly controlled but incredibly exciting Ravel concertos -- but the eighth and final disc with its two works by Haas' husband/composer Marcel Mihalovici is perhaps the most illuminating of them all. Where there was no question as to the artistic merits of Debussy's preludes, the merits of the nearly unknown Mihalovici's Ricercari and Second Violin Sonata might have been questioned had not Haas' completely committed and deeply affectionate performances made them seem as significant as the works of, say, Roussel or Honegger. Many of the recordings are in mono and the rest are early stereo, but DG's sound is consistently as clean, direct, and honest as the best of their later stereo recordings.